



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 



DREAMS OF HELLAS 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

ANNIE ELIZABETH CHENEY 




LLOYD PUBLISHING CO. 

NEW YORK AND LOS ANGELES 

1917 



-pS^p 



* fc v» 



COPYRIGHT, 1917 

BY 

WILLIAM ATWELL CHENEY 



MAY -4 1917 

©CU480583 



Dedicated 

to 

William Atwell Cheney 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Dreams of Hellas 

Part One — Daphnis . 11 

Part Two— Psyche 20 

Part Three— Athos . 27 

Phryne . . .37 



Miscellaneous Poems 

The Heart of my Song 42 

Passion 42 

"Queen of the Broidered Throne" 43 

Magic 43 

Adonis . . 44 

The Gardens of the Hesperides 45 

O Music, Love and Light! 46 

O Think of Me! 47 

The Bird of Paradise 48 

Your Eyes — Passion 49 

Hyacinthus : 49 

A Fragment 50 

Rhythm 50 

Who Are the Men That Do Things? 51 

A Coyote Prowled 52 

Even the Bock 52 

Constant? 53 

Smiling 53 

Laughing 54 

The West 55 

O Let Me Sing! 56 

O Beautiful Boy! 56 

A Broken Wing . . .58 

O Sing and Sing More 59 

The Roses 59 



ii CONTENTS 

Miscellaneous Poems — (Continued) page 

O Memory! 60 

The Scarab 61 

The Lotus— Fancy 61 

"What is a Friend?" 62 

Your Friends 6S 

Tones Celestial 68 

Fragment 65 

Forever 65 

A Fair California Day 67 

Peace 68 

The Wireless 69 

A Rhapsody 70 

O Let Me Dream My Dream! 75 

But Alas! 76 

A Cheat 76 

Foam 77 

Isolate 77 

Efficient, Primitive and More 77 

Misery 79 

Forgetting 79 

The First and Last 80 

O Shining Moon . . .81 

Far Land 81 

Rubies 81 

Orchestral 82 

The Sleep of Brahm 88 

The Master 86 

Have I Forgot? 86 

Herself 88 

Hush!— A Fragment 89 

Lone Bird 89 

Fragment 89 

Seaphita 90 

The Song "... 90 

Love, Be Kind! 91 

Lovers 91 

Poise 92 

Sorrow 92 

Mona Lisa 92 

Red Rose 93 

ORose! 93 

Where? 93 

A Memory .94 

Vanished .95 

To Helen 96 



CONTENTS iii 

Miscellaneous Poems — (Continued) page 

Captured 97 

Happiness 97 

Thy Name? 98 

Happiness — Alas! 99 

There's a Boy in the House 99 

Ashes — A Fragment 102 

Pain— What? 103 

Harpstrings 103 

A Fragment 105 

The Whistler . . . .105 

Beauty 106 

Extremes 106 

The Emerald — Immortality 107 

The Stars 108 

Success 108 

Louise 109 

Fragment 109 

Each Day 110 

To Sarah Elizabeth Lloyd .111 

Doom 112 

Near Asia 112 



Poems of Place 

Massachusetts 115 

California 116 

The Cliffs of San Juan 118 

The Blue Grotto : ... 119 

Domremy 119 

OValeYosemite!. 120 

The Most Beautiful! — At the Mosque of Sultan Hassan . 121 

The Temple of Minerva 121 

At the Mosque of Mohammed Ali '. 122 

The Desert Loth— Iran .122 

The Pearl of the Antilles .123 

A Sierra Minster 123 

From Lesbos 125 

Attica 126 

In Thessaly . 127 

Kailasa . 127 

Aspasia — Meletus 128 

The Taj Mehal 129 

I Have Been Under Irish Skies . . . . . . 131 

Among the Azores 132 



iv CONTENTS 

Poems of Place — (Continued) page 

The Mediterranean 132 

The Euphrates 133 

A Kiss 135 

Old Cathay 

Chang Tzu 136 

'Twas in the Days of Sanghu k 137 

Ah Kim 139 

The Light on Namsan 141 

Nippon 

The Sword of Old Japan 142 

Nippon's "Go-Down" 144 

Akagi 145 

O the Saki of Kioto! 146 

Renderings from the Japanese 

Suma Beach, Japan (Kinza Hirai) 147 

Otowa Falls, Japan (Kinza Hirai) 147 

On the Genkai Sea (Kinza Hirai) 148 

The Nightingale 149 

A Love Poem 150 

The Cherry 150 

The Plum 151 

Palace of Prince Royal 152 

Gazing Upon the Capital 152 

The Willow Tree Near Saidaiji 152 

To What Can the World be Compared? . . . .152 

Russia 

To Lermontov 153 

To My Russian Friend P. A. Demens 154 

Renderings from the Russian of Lermontov 

Oath of the Demon 156 

Extract from the Poem of Lermontov written in 1837 on the 

Death of Pushkin 158 

The Gifts of Terek 158 



CONTENTS v 

Renderings from the Russian op Lermontov 

— {Continued) page 

The Rock . 162 

The Valley of Groosia 162 

On the Dnieper— Winter 163 

On the Dnieper — Dawn 164 

The Gates of the Caucasus 164 

Egypt 

The Nile 166 

ATaleofKhem 170 



Circe 



Circe — My Apology 185 

Part One— The Sea (Actaeon) 188 

Part Two— The Desert (Nana) 198 

Part Three— The Mountain (Leon) . . . .209 



> 



DREAMS OF HELLAS 

PART ONE— DAPHNIS 
PART TWO— PSYCHE 
PART THREE— ATHOS 



PART ONE 
DAPHNIS 

HellaSj, mother of Immortals, 

Did Zeus with lightning quicken thee, 

Or Helios kindle fires within thy breast? 

The hem of thy enchanted robe 

Is kissed by amorous seas; 

Did sly Poseidon steal within thine arms 

When rose the impassioned Deep, 

Or were thy sons conceived 

Through Love descending from the skies, 

Or by the rays of iridescent stars? 

And were thy daughters nursed upon a breast 

Whose milk thou didst secrete from honeyed flowers? 

A dreamer dreamed beside the sea, 

He pondered wonderingly on man, 

And age and death, 

The ancient, young, the deep, deep sea, 

The sea alive. 

Between the dim and distant isles 

And upland of the hazy hills 

Great Helios lies in couch of gold, 

And watches with his sleepy eyes 

The soft and ever-changing view, 

XI 



12 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Designed with tender tints and true 
On misty background of the skies. 
The limner streams the blue and red, 
The amethyst and purple dyes, 
Along the water's foamy edge 
And up the lofty vault 
Of heaven's dusky dome. 

Far cities with their minarets 
And pale dim seas with phantom ships, 
Fair maids with robes of filmy lace, 
Grim scenes of war with charging steeds, 
Green islands where young lovers dream, 
With forests dim where Cupids hide, 
All these he paints, while singing winds 
Trill music into raptured ears, 
And crashing in, and rushing on, 
The white-maned valiant ocean steeds 
Dash up the sandy beach. 

At last the poet slept, while frothy waves 

Stole softly over sandalled feet 

And fringed with bubbling foam 

His clinging robe. 

A haze more golden than his hair, 

Through whose pure sheen 

The drowsy sun sent parting beams, 

Fell like a blessing on his form. 

Sweet visions of young pleading eyes, 

Sea-tinted, changing like the deep, 

Entranced his dreaming soul. 



DAPHNIS 13 

The god of Love stole softly by, 

While sea-nymphs tangled in his locks 

Small shells and dripping moss, 

And one- — ah one! — bent low and kissed his brow. 

O music, beauty, bliss ! 

A song was born to that mad kiss, 

And music rolled within his ears 

To torture his too happy soul 

With still more happiness. 

He plunged to gloomy ocean depths 
And roamed about in crystal caves. 
He rose to lofty mountain peaks 
And floated in ethereal space. 
He rode upon the rushing stars 
And lashed his chariot steeds of suns 
Across the trackless sky. 

With sudden start the dreamer wakes. 

Thou art most charming, Daphnis, and most fair. 

Some siren needs must envy thee thine eyes; 

Another fain would steal thy yellow hair. 

Hellenic maids by ruse alone can win 

Such dazzling whiteness as thy skin. 

Too fair art thou for virile man, 

And yet a man thou surely art; 

No sign of weakness can be traced 

In thy strong sinewy limbs. 

Methinks thou shouldst contest 

For honors at Olympic games. 

Ah! woman fain might kneel in joy to thee 

And sue for love eternally. 



> 



14 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"What news ?" he said. "Ah, me ! I've slept, 
And yet the rhythmic wheel turns round, 
The ancient comes again to light. 
Poor fools are we who see no farther 
Than our eyes can roam. 
To-day is but a slow return 
Of some sad, other day 
Which has been lived before. 

"What cheat is that within the mind 
That touches up the old 
With powders, paints and dyes, 
To call it new? 

"And yet, and yet, I know that he 
Who views the sea, the sky, and man 
Through love's clear, truthful lens 
Perceives a beauty, changing, yet unchanged, 
Innumerable in One. 

"I know not love this hour, 
But what of love, Uranian love! 
Desire transcendent in delight 
Yet never satiate? 
Hast thou not felt the subtle thrill 
That steals from virgin hearts to clinging hands, 
The magic fire that flashes from the eye 
And kindles in another's breast 
A never-dying flame? 
To wander in the hazy realm of soul, 
To revel in its sweets 



DAPHNIS 15 

And pluck its flowers of thought, 

Aye, to explore its depths, 

Is losing self in maze of Paradise. 

"And Fame, O what of Fame? 
A fickle wanton 
Is this cherubin of Hell. 

"Thou art not dear to me, O Fame ! 
I asked for love, upon my knees 
I plead for friendship — thou didst come. 
I spurn thee as I ever spurn 
The tempter of a struggling god. 
I scorn thee as I ever scorn 
Seducers of a blushing maid. 
What offerest thou in lieu of love? 
Show me thy charms, and weigh them now 
Against the beauty of a friend. 

"When I would grasp thy hands outstretched 
I wring mine own in grief. 
When I would fold thee in mine arms 
Thou- meltest as the tearful snow 
Beneath a heavenly kiss. 
O, go and stay, forever stay 
Beside the soul that longs for thee! 
Twine thou the bay about his brows, 
And cut his name in marble shafts 
Till thy worn chisel breaks. 
Announce the centuries with blasts 
Of trumpet's heralding. 



16 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Invoke wild thunders to delight 

His ears insatiate. 

But leave thou me, I called thee not. 

I toss my laurels at thy feet, 

I bribe thee with my jewelled rings, 

I kiss the border of thy robe 

And cringing beg of thee, depart! 

O leave! and I will pray the gods 

To send me one adoring friend. 

"And thou, O Muse, come tell to me 
The secret of my joy! 
What strange afflatus, subtle, strong, 
And sweet with perfume dost thou breathe, 
That by the magic of thy wile 
In face of death I still do smile? 
Tell me, O Muse, thy charm! 
Dost thou look out from eyes of doves, 
Or warble in the throats of larks? 
Art thou concealed in misty lace 
That trembles near a woman's heart? 
Dost thou go singing on in brooks, 
Or clingest thou about the pine 
In emerald moss? 
Art thou the voice within the wind 
That rings along the cloud? 
Art thou the spirit of the fire 
Which shines in starry space, 
Or dost thou thunder from the deep 
Which bears upon its restless breast 
The heaving, foam-flecked waves? 



DAPHNIS 17 

"And thou, Old Age! O what of thee? 
Thou hateful, noisome thing! 
That leavest trails of slime along thy path, 
And spittest venom at fair youth. 
Thou vampire, sucking children's veins ! 
Thou carrion-bird, gorged with decay! 
Thou animated corpse! 
That crunchest with thy toothless jaws 
A scrap to keep thyself alive; 
Touch thou not me! 
The heart that loves is ever young. 

"O Shade, phantasmal Death ! 
Why lurkest thou in shadowy places dark, unseen, 
To breathe thine icy breath on me? 
Thou canst not chill a heart that loves !" 

He bared his head unto the storm, 
And faced with folded arms 
The charging blast. 

The lightning wreathed him round and round 
In curling tongues of flame; 
The thunders, impotent, denounced, 
But still he stood unmoved and smiled. 
"And Psyche what of thee?" he asked, 
For Daphnis heard the singing 
Through the garden ringing. 
So lifting up his eyes, i 

He called Adonis from the skies. 

"Adonis, speak! what bringest thou? 
I long to sleep upon thy breast, 



18 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Upon thy heart I beg to rest, 

Or waken to thy tender eyes 

And dream again of Paradise, 

Of streams where white-limbed naiads play 

And deck their locks in jewelled spray, 

Of breezes wantoning with trees, 

And islands born of sapphire seas, 

Of stars enticing stars in skies 

Whose blue would rival Psyche's eyes, 

Of blushing mountains kissed by dawns, 

Each redder than her sister morn, 

And lovers — how my heart doth beat ! — 

Say truly, can love be so sweet, 

Celestial, pure, eternal, mine, 

Inspiring, like a subtle wine, 

Delighting with its smouldering fire, 

Desire born gently from desire, 

A bird which dreams upon the wing 

Or pierces heaven again to sing, 

A star that wheels towards passion's goal 

To quench its quenchless burning soul, 

A song which catches 'mid the calm 

The echo of its thrilling charm, 

A rhythmic sea enamored yet 

Of moons it never can forget? 

Speak, speak to me! what bringest thou? 

Adonis, speak! and bless me now." 

Adonis: 
"Immense abyss of blue ethereal gleam, 
Wild oceans raging over earth 



DAPHNIS 19 



Are naught to Love 

And his eternal dream. 

No depth was yet so dark, so deep, 

That Love could not explore; 

No mountain peak so high, so steep, 

But Love hath struggled o'er. 

Transcending all he cleaves the sky, 

And borne on amber-flaming wings 

He dares to live, and scorns to die." 



PART TWO 
PSYCHE 

"Ourane ! Love ! 

With passion bid me melt and tremble, 
Fire of suns, nor yet dissemble! 
Prostrate to thee I am lying, 
For thy blessing ever sighing, 
For thy kisses living, dying, 
Come, O come! 

"With eyes uplifted I implore thee, 
Come from thy far starry portal, 
Come to me a sad Immortal, 
Open wide the jewelled door, 
Love me, Love, for evermore! 
Nor can I soaring rise to thee — 
O fly, and flying, fly to me! 

"Come with soul forever vernal, 
All thy power of love eternal, 
Heaving breast divinely young, 
Songs within thy heart unsung, 
To me, to me O come! 

20 



PSYCHE 21 

"O cover me in matchless splendor 
With thy glances, fiery, tender, 
Warmer than her burning blushes 
When the smiling Eos flushes 
Rosy red with dawn ! 

"Intoxicate and softly woo me, 
Love, enamour and pursue me, 
Till my heart with thine is throbbing, 
Till my breast on thine is sobbing, 
Come, Ourane, come !" 

Then Psyche rose, and called aloud to Love: 

"O Love, dear Love! 

I strained mine eyes 

To look beyond the stars, 

To search the heavens for thee; 

I lay upon the ground 

With face upturned, 

That I might see thee 'mid the clouds. 

If thou hadst cast thy shadow at my feet, 

I should have swooned with joy, 

O Love, dear Love! 
I strained mine eyes 
To view the mountain top, 
To pierce the misty deep, 
And then I scanned my very heart, 

My very heart, 
Where thee I found." 



22 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

From bird and bower 

Strange voices came, 

From fountains and from singing brooks, 

From raindrops, pelting dripping leaves, 

From grasses breathing secret hopes, 

And all in concert sang: 

"Within thy soul behold him, 
Seest thou the rushing waves 
That run mad races on the shore, 
And never-dying blooms 
On patriots' graves? 
Seest thou the sea far down and deep, 
The caves of pearl where sirens sleep, 
The caverns haunted by strange shapes 
That slimy weed in beauty drapes, 
And faces sad and pale, with eyes 
Still watching for the tide to rise? 
Look deeper yet within thy soul, 
Around, and down the mystic whole; 
Behold volcanoes breathing fire 
And suns which scintillate desire; 
See stars reflected from above, 
And one, the brightest, 
Star of Love. 

"And wouldst thou know Love's voice? 
Hear, hear the whirring wings of birds 
That, cleaving the resistant air, 
Are scattering music everywhere, 
The warble of the nightingale 



PSYCHE 23 

That sings unto a star 

And calls her mate from far, 

Or to the echo as it flies 

Back to its mother's breast and dies. 

Ah, listen! Over all thou hearest 

Catch thou the purest tone and dearest, 

Rising clear and sad and lone. 

'Tis thine? Ah, yes. It is his own!" 

Psyche: 

"Whence comes this stillness 

Following softly in the wake of storms? 

With fury of the elements 

My heart in all its passion raged, 

But now like this soft eve 

It floats on seas of calm. 

Last night, when fiercest fought the clouds, 

A passing gust of hurrying wind 

Tossed me a message, fleeing as it spake: 

'The poet Daphnis loveth thee.' 

Ah, yes, 'tis true, 'tis true, 

The poet Daphnis loveth me, 

The soul of music whom the Muses know. 

Clear merry streams laugh happily, 

Cool fountains sing with him, 

Sweet sea-nymphs, all enamoured, sport, 

While goddesses seductively implore. 

And Aphrodite — Ah me! — Aphrodite 

Smiles and coaxes more. 
To me he never yet hath spoken 
Yet silently I, too, adore. 



24 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"O Daphnis, waves in tides do rise, 

And so my soul aspires to thee. 

Thou mortal, yet invincible, 

More lofty than the skies, 

Yet deeper than the deepest sea. 

Thou singest and the birds are mute; 

Thou smilest, and the sun is dark. 

"I hear the dewdrop fall upon the grass, 
I see the life-sap flow in quivering leaves, 
I feel the earth move when thou passest by. 
And pausing thou, my head is bowed, 
Laughter is silent, water falls in holy song, 
Yet still the weaving of the spider's web goes on. 

"Oft times at night the sun doth shine — 

A strange sun 
Whose blended light in violet glows — 
Alone am I in thought with thee; 
I cannot rise on pinions golden-tipped, 
So thou descendest unto me. 

"What matters it if ocean parts? 
Can distance sunder loving hearts? 
What matters it where he may be? 
In mind he ever dwells with me. 
Together we may never walk, 
Yet 'mid the blue we meet and talk. 

"I look into a star, my Love is there; 
In silvery lakes I gaze, he smiles at me. 



PSYCHE 25 

He comes upon the breeze that softly steals 
O'er far enchanted mountains to my door; 
He sighs among the trees, I hear his voice 
In cadence tender where the shadows fall; 
His breath is on my cheek when lilies bloom, 
His face is cut in flame where embers die. 

Yet where, dear Love, 
In all this wide world, where, 

O where art thou?" 

The answer came like falling rain, 
Upon her heart it fell: — 
"Lo, everywhere!" 

So Psyche strolled among the sleepy shrubs, 

To talk to melancholy trees 

And waken dreaming birds. 

From plant to plant she strayed 

And learned a secret here, 

A love-tale there, 

Or comforted a drooping bud, 

And trained a wilful vine. 

At last her soul its love did tell 

In singing, 
Its music through the garden ringing 

On to the stars. 

"My heart will burst with ecstasy ! 

O Love forgive! 
Departed all expectancy, 

Now, now I live! 



26 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Waves of rapture rolling o'er me- 

Love, I am thine ! 
Sweet Ourane, I implore thee, 

Be ever mine ! 

"Ah the music! Ah the feeling! 

All, all my heart 
Is itself to thee revealing, 

Thou, thou a part. 

"Doubt has flown on sable pinions, 
Faith strong, divine, 

Bears me home to her dominions, 
Bliss, bliss is mine! 

"My heart will burst with ecstasy! 

O Love forgive ! 
Departed all expectancy, 

Now, now I live!" 



PART THREE 
ATHOS— OLYMPUS 

"O Zeus almighty ! Thou who canst entwine 
A chain of lightning round the form divine 

Of proud Olympus, 
Snatch young Athos to thy powerful arms, 
Protect him from a woman's charms ! 
Be still, thou Tempter! 
He who soars on reason's wings 
To vast unending space of mind 
Must rise alone, 

Untrammelled by seducing arms, 
Unfettered by the tangling charms 
Of woman's locks, 

Unloved by children, who but carry on 
The curse of woe." 

For Athos spake in plaintive tone 

Grim words which seemed to sigh and moan 

Along the quivering, shivering leaves 

That rustled 'mid the stately trees 

Across the valley and the lea 

Of classic Hellas to the sea. 

27 



28 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Beneath the brooding wings of love 

Hate lies concealed; 
Black shadow sharply cuts across 

The noonday sun; 
The ebb-tide follows close upon 

The leaping sea; 
From womb of Hope 

Despair is born; 
Indifference dances near 

Supreme desire; 
But pure tranquility is found 

On that lone height 
Where all of nature blends. 

"I seek the goal of mind 

Where love and hate, 
Indifference, passions flame, and hope 

Are seen from far, 
And through the lucent air of soul 
Are merged within the One." 

He ceased^ and sadly gazed around. 
Was it a voice or did he dream? 
Some siren from a distant wood, 
A Naiad from a whispering stream, 
A soft vibration in the air, 
Pathetic like a woman's prayer, 
Had startled him. 

"Adonis, loved of Aphrodite!" — 
Aye, 'twas such a cry 
As one would raise about to die. 



ATHOS-OLYMPUS 29 

It flew along electric air in very frenzy of despair. 
Then prone he lay beneath the moon, 
The pitiless, white moon! 

Ah! he was young, if one can be, 
Who lives and lives eternally, 
And he was fair, if men are so, 
With eyes as bright 
As orbs of night. 

"Once more, fair Athens, then will I depart, 
I'll tear from my revolting breast, my heart!" 

He struggled to his feet and went 
Desirous, vacillating,, spent, 
Amid the pile of Hellas' palaces. 

Helios arose and over Athens gleamed, 
Ah! what cares he for wisdom's lore or maid's virginity? 
Upon the evil and the good 
Impartially he sheds his beams, 
On palace roofs and rushing streams, 
Save where the wood conceals their purity. 
He listens not to human prayer, 
Nor loveth he the young and fair, 
But dandles with the locks of age voluptuously. 
On haunts of guilt he blandly smiles, 
And boldly he himself beguiles 
In dens of infamy. 



30 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Beneath his glaring, scorching rays, 
More searching than a woman's gaze, 
Walked Athos wearily, 
Till, strolling near a palace door, 
He turned, as if to stay were sin, 
But halted once again, ah more ! 
He went within. 

O passion — man ! 

Immortal, but his soul, alas! 

Is bound by chains of sense. 

Desire intoxicates his blood 
And leaps along his nerves 
To rule his yielding heart, 
And strike his reason blind. 
In vain does his aspiring mind 
Attempt, as would a captured bird, 
To rise to those supernal heights 
Where dwell the conquering gods. 

Again, again he dreams of love, 

Of music and sweet summer nights, 

Of Aphrodite and her doves. 

But as cold breezes from the North 

Bring doom to tender flowers, 

So down from ice-peaks of his mind 

The frost of logic fell, 

And quenched the fire of his desire. 

He broke the honeyed, subtle film 



ATHOS-OLYMPUS 31 

That held him like a vicious snare, 
And spake aloud harsh virile words 
That sprang from soul itself. 
"To scale the heights of mind 
From passion must I flee. 
To stand upon the dizzy crest 
Mine eyes must upward gaze. 
Truth shivers on the mountain peak, 
She is my hope, 'tis she I seek." 

Adonis, shivering, bowed his golden head; 
Fair Aphrodite with her doves had fled; 
The tearful clouds all rushed in quick alarm 
To wrap the sky which lay within the arm 

Of willing earth. 
The sun retired to depths of dark, 
Nor upward soared the rapturous lark; 
In discord music moaned and sighed, 
While fascination drooped and died. 

The night was dark; 

The moon in fright had hid herself, 

And startled stars had fled. 

Black clouds, in sullen groups, 

Had crowded in the gloom, 

Until their sap of life, the oozing rain, 

Fell spattering to the ground. 

The winds in mad battalions shrieked, 

And giant oaks fought grimly with the blast. 

Fantastic music, struck from Orphic lyre, 

Rang past the quivering pines 



32 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Which swayed in pantomimic dance 

To Delphic rhapsody. 

Now fiercer raged the battle 'mid the clouds 

That shocked the earth with thunderbolts 

And hurled hot balls of fire, 

While cutting with sharp knives of sleet 

The vanquished and the dead. 

Great Athos sat apart; 

His flashing eyes gleamed like the double stars, 

And when the thunder ceased 

Its tragic moan, he spake: 

"Ah, how my youth has flown! 

Now Truth and I are here alone. 

Nay, wait! Yet much I have not found; 

So vast is she that when I touch the hem 

Of her white robe, her face is lost above, 

And when I fly on wings of thought 

To spaces 'twixt the stars, 

And gaze into her eyes ? 

Her form hath vanished from my view. 

"Shall I go back to earth and worms," he said, 

"Give up my quest and dally with the dead, 

Dig up a grave, embrace an old desire, 

Play with decay and burn with evil fire? 

No, no, forever no ! 

Though heaven's bolts were hurled at me, 

Though lightnings blinded me, 

Though gods should weep 

And demons curse! 



ATHOS-OLYMPUS 33 



Put me upon the rack 

And twist my tortured limbs., 

Pile faggots high 

And scorch me in their flames, 

Hang me upon a cross 

And jeer and spit at me ! 

No, no, forever no ! 

"I stand on that lone height 

Where silent stars and I 

Hold converse sad. 

The clouds are far beneath, 

Like breath of mist. 

No friend have I save the white moon; 

Love could not climb so far; 

He shivered and turned back 

Unto' the plains below. 

Hate comes not here, 

Nor proud Ambition; 

There are none, 

For star-eyed Hope, 

And cold Despair have flown. 

No bird of song 

E'er soars to realms which I have won, 

In spaces silent, desolate, 

I dwell and brood alone. 

"I slew Earth's joy as up I came, 
Fair children's eyes 
Grew dim beneath my glance, 
Sweet flowers were crushed, 



34 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

And beauty fled dismayed. 

Now bleeding, torn, 

With thorn-pierced hands, 

Indifferent eyes, 

Upon this crag where love comes not, 

Erect and poised, 

I stand alone." 



WINTER OLYMPUS 

How the dark clouds glower and threaten, 

Climbing up and gliding down the mountain peaks ! 

The tyrant Death, in heartless glee, 

Holds festivals in palaces of ice on winter nights, 

And ghosts of maids, whose roses 

He has blasted with a kiss, 

Strong youth, stabbed ruthlessly in jealous rage, 

Sweet children stolen with the flowers, 

All gather there. 

When 'twixt the somber curtains hung aloft 
The moon peeps out and shivers with the cold, 
Aeolus plays upon a harp of many strings, 
And one loud discord rolls through depths of space 
In waves of misery. 

Ice! Ice! 

Sharp, cutting swords of ice! 

Long, jagged knives of ice! 

That cleave straight to the marrow-bone 

Like ground and burnished steel, 

Or tear and hack like metal red with rust. 



ATHOS-OLYMPUS 35 

Ice needles., fine and sharp 

And stinging like an insect's barb, 

Stilettos, piercing tender veins 

For drops of scarlet blood, 

Cold forms of women, men and children, 

Stiff and stark, all, all of ice. 

And the snow, an endless main of snow ! 

A sea of pallid faces staring up with glazed eyes 

Into the sky, 

Great, shivering oaks that strive in vain to die, 

Young plants enwrapped in shrouds, 

And weary mountains 

Crouching 'neath a weight of woe, 

And the winds 

'Mid snapping branches wrestling, 

Moaning 'mong the skeletons of trees 

As if Love's heart were breaking. 

Near to the mountain top 

There stands a pine 

That sways and sings 

To wail of winter storms. 

Though buffeted by savage blasts, 

And bent to earth with weight of snow, 

Defiant and alone 

It flings at Death 

A challenge with its long, green arms, 

And firmly holds its place 

Upon Olympus' noble crest. 

Thou Mountain deified, 
Olympus, battle-scarred ! 



36 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Through fire thy head 

Was reared above the clouds. 

Into dim blue thou looniest, 

And misty, distant, lone, 

Thy brow is lost above! 

And Athos, thou 

Upon the icy heights of mind 

To Reason wed, think on, 

While down in dim and verdant vales 

The song of earth is sung. 



PHRYNE 

'Tis terrible to live; 

'Tis passion, power, to feel and quiver 

Till tiie moon grows warm 

From glances of one's eyes; 

To wrestle with the shade of thought 

Till sunlight turns to glare of ice ; 

To love and hate, to know and understand. 

Alas, and I have lived ! 

Here cold and haggard on the verge of death, 

All charm departed, a wingless bird, 

I still remember mine own beauty, 

As though in ivory cut. 

Beauty! 'Twas mirrored and flashed back at me 

From passion's glittering eyes. 

Each day I saw myself in wells of light 

More lovely, fairer, 

Flushing full-blooded to the heart of him 

Who worshipped most, 

Yet kissing right and left ambitious lips; 

For I was vain. 

Oft have I wound my red-gold hair 

About the form of one 

Who strove, alas ! to chisel me in stone. 

37 



38 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Ha ! ha ! Can marble quiver with the wild heart's beat, 

Or cheat the world to dreams of life? 

Praxiteles ! — I laugh — 

Ambitious, yet defied, 

And by a woman's breasts. 

To capture Love is but to soil the hands 

With dust of butterflies,, 

To imprison beauty is to strike her blind. 

The statue has but sightless eyes. 

Yet those were golden days, 

And Athens flamed with light. 

My hair tossed back the beams 

Whence they had come. 

So beautiful was I 

That blushes found no spot 

Whereon to paint me. 

Like Eros I was flushed with dawn, 

And rosy with the lust of life, 

Nor virgin shy, yet modesty looked on 

Forgetful of her name. 

Ah me! Nor shame nor modesty 

Did taunt me then. 

How pink the gleaming of my skin, 

How fair on that enchanted day, 

When naked, save my hair, — 

A mantle that did here and there 

Divide about my arms and panting breast, 

Half hiding, half revealing faultless limbs — 

A shimmering veil about my face, 



PHRYNE 39 

Through which mine eyes flashed deadly sweet. 

On that charmed day 

Before the gaze of Athens 

And Apelles, the beloved, 

I walked into the amorous sea 

As passionate as she 

Who rose upon the melting foam — 

And shall I breathe it? — 

As unearthly fair. 

The sun's enraptured stare 

Unveiled the ultimate, 

And there of beauty was no more 

Than it revealed in me. 

Phryne! and thou sittest here 

Dabbling thy withered limbs 

In icy stream of death, 

To prate of beauty 

While thy straggling locks 

Lie scant about thy neck, 

Phryne! Ah, that day 

When man elected thee as queen, 

That golden day! 

Who forced the cup of life upon my lips, 

A chalice sparkling o'er with rosy blood, 

Till drugged with drippings 

From Love's bursting veins 

I caught the taint of death? 

Who forced the cup of life upon my lips? 

Ye gods, O pity me! 



40 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

'Tis sin to grow so cold, 

To shrivel like the moon and freeze; 

'Tis sin to pant no more with love. 

Hesperides! I shrank 

When last I yielded to thy mad embrace. 

My flesh aglow, 

Myself a clod, 

My love-lit eyes 

Seductive lies, 

My smile a hint 

Of frozen lips. 

Alas, the shock! 

I see thee yet ! 

Forgive, 

For sake of me — forget. 

The fire but smouldered, 

And I read my doom. 

Loved Attica! O where 

Have vanished summer suns? 

Who stole mine eyes' hot glances 

My lips a wine cup, 

Who did dare 

To drink the dregs? 

My arms, my white arms ! 

Where, O Phryne, fairest 

Once among the fair, 

Has Eros fled? 

Life sleeps with pillowed head 
On sterile breast, 



PHRYNE 41 

While crawls the sluggish snake 

In August sun. 

Sluggish? Aye, I thrill no more. 

Hark to the faint heat of my heart! 

Across my knee there lies a wrinkled babe, 

Lank-haired and fanged; 

His very locks among themselves can move; 

A leer is on his lips, 

His wicked eyes are old. 

When passion's fire burned low 

The embers desperately I stirred 

And found incarnate evil there. 

Once, Phryne, once 

Thy blood was warm with solar heat, 

The sun once whitened thee like snow 

And fondled thy long hair 

With fiery finger-tips. 

With kisses once 

He rouged thy willing cheek, 

While twining amorous arms 

About thy breasts; 

Now rotten, wretched, cursed and old, 

His cruel rays 

Like vultures pick 

The carrion from thy bones. 

A frozen monster thou, and cold in heaven's heat, 

Debauched, condemned, afraid, 

Alone, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

THE HEART OF MY SONG 

O Muse ! Rain music in sounds 

That falling rebound whence they flew. 

O Muse! Send words from above, 

The magic-fire language of love, 
Catch, catch the Ideal and make it the real! 

Lost in the web of spider-like words 

That entangle and hold, 

Allure and enfold 
The heart of my song! 

O Muse! Send words from above, 

The magic-fire language of love. 

PASSION 

Passion that tears the stars from the heaven, 
That brings up the pearls from the sea, 

Fire that burns the dross from the leaven 
And thrills with the love of the free! 

The bard who yields to flesh his emotion, 

Knows naught of the frenzy divine. 
The dreamer who ladles the drops from the ocean 

Is scorned by the gods and the Nine. 

42 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 43 



"QUEEN OF THE BROIDERED THRONE" 

Winged bird of flame, cleaving the ether, 
Up, up, where the doves of Love nutter 
For me bear a message, even to Eros 
Tenderly utter the passionate plaint of my soul. 

Tell him the heart of me breaks with its sighing; 

In music — O sing it — flying, aye flying 
High to the throne of the Queen. 

Gaze in her eyes, 
Close, close to her lean, 

Dove of the ethers, dove of the skies ! 

A mortal — I love like a God; 

My King lieth down on the sod, 
And hugs the black breast of the earth. 

Queen of mid-sky! 
Thrill him through; thrill him through 
With passion of you — 

That he hear me, adore me, — or die. 



MAGIC 

Alas ! Alas ! Red rapture dies ; 

The glow on noon's hot breast must fade. 
Sad evening with regretful eyes 

Must sit and ponder in the shade. 
'Twill vanish soon, my song, my love, 
As passes Aphrodite's dove. 



44 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Where goes this happiness of mine? 

I'd know the deeps of this delight; 
This ecstasy that rivals wine 

I'd drink and drink, all day, all night. 
Where steals this subtle, unsolved bliss, 
This joy, this curse, this frown, this kiss? 

If dregs of rapture I might madly quaff, 
The bitterness, the grief of bliss, 

At death thereafter would I mock and laugh, 
If once, once only I might taste of this. 



ADONIS 

I love thee, Phaon ! 

How I love thee 

The ocean tells the moon. 

White the cliffs of Leucas, 

Deep the sea! 

I'd perish in thy beauty, 

But death is shy of me. 

The laurel thou didst give me, 

For love hath taught me song, 

And still it sweeps the lyre's strings along 

Through my soft fingers. 

Ah, I love thee! 

All my singing I do sing for thee, 
Naught for the ages care, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 45 

Alone for thine eyes' glances, 
Thy sun-fingered hair. 
Naught for the Nine or Lesbos, 
Only for thee. 

White the cliffs of Leucas, 

Deep the sea. 



THE GARDENS OF THE HESPERIDES 

Oft I dream of vales supernal, 
Nectar glistening on the vine, 

Shadowy home of Love eternal, 
Serpent-guarded, dim, divine. 

Oft I sense Elysian roses, 

Moon-kissed phantom lilies see. 

Ah, the couch where Love reposes — 
Love whose glance has flashed on me ! 

Love, Hesperides, and rapture! 

Love, the singer, Love, the song; 
Love with eyes that subtly capture, 

The beautiful, the strong. 

Peril? Aye, for bliss means danger! 

Kiss Hesperides and die, 
Or to joy remain a stranger — 

Golden apples gjisten high! 



46 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

O, to feel Elysian breezes ! 

One more draught of nectar, one ! 
Lest my soul to rapture freezes, 

Lest a raven hide the sun. 

Die ? Ah, yes — to rise in beauty ! 

Die? To wake by Eden's stream! 
Where, forgetting heartless duty, 

I may live for Love's sweet dream. 

Westwind! o'er the Gardens blowing, 
Thrilled with fair Hesperides, 

Come, O come, my cheeks are glowing! 
Westwind! float across the seas. 

Waft a flower to me, a stranger, 
One rare leaf or petal bring; 

What care I for death or danger? 
Waft a rose, for I would sing! 



O MUSIC, LOVE AND LIGHT! 

O music, love and light! If I should ever 

Enjoy their awful charm complete, 
If from me they need vanish never, 

I then might rest at Beauty's feet. 

But ah! The real is only known through sorrow, 
The day from darkness leaps alive at dawn; 

The yearning of my struggling soul to-morrow 
Must sing itself into the fire of morn. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 47 

The grip of pain will sometime cease and rapture 
Will hurl despair to dungeon depths afar; 

Through cloud and mist I yet shall fly and capture 
The lovelight of the Morning Star. 



O THINK OF ME! 

In lone, high places, think of me, 

Where pines grow rank and earth is fair, 

When you on mountain crest are free, 
Lo, I am there! 

Beside the ever-plaintive sea, 

Half buried in the shifting sand, 

When weary of the world you flee 
From sight of land. 

Remember one whose eyes with thine 
Have gazed far off across the blue, 

To life's divine horizon line 
I've looked with you. 

The heights and depths are ours forever, 
All else may force us far apart, 

But naught these vast extremes can sever, 
Nor heart from heart. 



48 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



THE BIRD OF PARADISE 

Once, aye once, I tasted rapture, 
Haunting still in dreams to-day, 

O to know again, to capture 
Bliss, the bird that flew away! 

Come, descend, descend unto me! 

Bird of Paradise, be mine, 
For 'twas thou didst once renew me, 

I was thine, Oh I was thine! 

On some sunny stream of splendor, 
Come thou Soul of trembling rays! 

Come through azure depths and tender, 
As before in happy days. 

Flash thy rainbow-tinted singing 
'Cross my sense, entrance, entrance! 

To mine ears thy music bringing, 

To mine eyes, thy glance, thy glance. 

Once, aye once, I tasted rapture, 
Haunting still in dream to-day, 

O to know again, to capture 
Bliss, the bird that flew away ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 49 



YOUR EYES— PASSION 

Your eyes! An instant! 

Ah, the spell! 
Hereafter they are heaven or hell 

To me — your eyes! 

Blue, profound and infinite, 

Aglow with wild desire, 
Azure dark with mystery, 

Passionate with fire. 

Your eyes, alas ! have won me, 

Nor can I turn and flee, 
Nor find on earth some lonely spot 

Where your blue, desperate eyes are not. 



HYACINTHUS 

Apollo sees thy charm, loved boy, 
And fascinated, beams; 

While dwelling on some vanished joy 
The muses, startled from their dreams, 
Walk restless by their native streams. 

Fair Lesbos, fair, where once long past, 

The Tenth Muse struck the quivering lyre, 

And all the Nine stood hushed, aghast, 
At Sappho's song, that ever higher 
Hath upward flown on wings of fire. 



50 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Here, Hyacinthine Boy, ablaze! 

Thou then didst bind Apollo's hands, 

And still mid flowery, perfumed maze, 
In Hellas he enraptured stands 
Enamoured of these favored lands. 



A FRAGMENT 

My tears are for myself alone, 

My smiles for those I love ; 
His plumage o'er his wound he spreads, 

When pants the injured dove. 



RHYTHM 

To-night your promise you ignore, and I, 

Intense with listening for your wayward feet, 
Grow angry, grieved, and stare along the street, 

Alive with hope and fear as minutes fly, 
Condemning you and loving, too. I see 

To-morrow your life's tide will turn, and then 

You'll madly long to view my face again, 
But O, lost love, you'll look in vain for me ! 

You came not here; you went your wanton way, 
Believing me forgiving and most kind, 
That my rapt passion must your faults condone. 

Ah, Rhythm ! The ebb of love is hate ; some day 
You'll long and search for her you cannot find, 
And on life's lonesome trail will walk alone. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 51 



WHO ARE THE MEN THAT DO THINGS? 

The men of brawn or the men of wings — 
Who are the men that do great things? 
Who make our vivid dreams come true? 
To whom say we, "It's up to you"? 
Who dares the confines called ideal? 
Who seizes plans and makes them real? 

Who tears the shaft from fertile brain, 
To raise in marble high again? 
Who fashions, fuses, welds and rears; 
Who digs and cleanses, forms and clears? 
Who naked, sweats in ditch and well; 
Who mines for gold, who laughs at hell? 

Does wizardry in reason lie? 
Does genius dare and do and die? 
Or is it brawn, the lump of clay, 
That makes the fight and wins the day ? 

An Edison were less a god 
Were he not brother to the sod. 
Yet men of brawn are but a herd, 
Till haughty genius speaks the word, 
And urges strength to bring to light 
The wonder that is out of sight. 

Who are the men that do things? 

O rank and file, that sweat and swear ! 



52 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

O winged minds that cleave the air! 
Strike hands and understand, and then 
Combine and build the world again. 

The ideal yielding like a wife, 
To physical demand and life, 
Comes down to matter, sinew, bone, 
On earth at last to claim its own. 



A COYOTE PROWLED 

A coyote came one night to the sea, 

And howled at the waves and howled at me, 

And the white-maned monster roared and mumbled 

At the dog that prowled and starved and grumbled. 

Thin and lank and ruffled and grey, 

He stalked and stalked in search of prey, 

And snarled and snapped and wailed at fate 

That dealt him dust and the dregs of hate. 

I gave him a bone and words and sighs, 

And he showed me his teeth and he showed me his eyes ; 

And his teeth were clean and strong and white, 

And his eyes were fine as a frosty night. 



EVEN THE ROCK 

The barren rock, 'tis said — ah, no! 
Upon its bosom lichens grow; 
And lichens nourished by the dew, 
May strengthen me and succor you. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 53 



CONSTANT? 

O Moon! As constant as art thou am I, 
A strange one-sided thief of light like thee. 
I give my heart, the fickle soul of me, 

And then from all I fain would love, I fly. 

Ah, thou returnest, stealing softly nigh 

O'er those adored to subtly brood and smile, 
Unstinting, lavish, full of transient guile, 

A mocking splendor forced to poise on high. 

We wax and wane together, come and go 
Anon a phantom's shifting glimpse of fire, 

Like mask of hallowe'en, or sickle's show, 
To thrill with doubtful rapture and desire, 

And promise give of glamour's brighter glow, 
Ere we to longing, distant loves aspire. 



SMILING 

They tell us to smile all the while, 
"Keep on smiling, the world beguiling, 
Smile, smile, lie and smile." 
But who are they, these imps of wile 
That caution us to smile, smile, smile? 

I cannot tell a lie, 

For smiling when I ought to cry 

My conscience I defy; 

And yet they say, lie. 



54 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

I wonder if grim fiends they are 
Who laugh by proxy, 
And spend their time 
Suggesting orthodoxy, 
An unctuous hierarchy 
Nudging us from astral spaces, 
Urging us to court the graces. 

If I were Mona Lisa, I'd comply, 
But being just a human 
I'd rather cry 
Than smile and lie. 



LAUGHING 

With the Immortals laughing at us 
And the grim world all awry, 

I try to pierce the arch above 
And gaze into the sky. 

I can hear their sharp staccatoes, 

For angels laugh aloud, 
But they hide behind a rampart 

Of grey and sullen cloud. 

We play our little game for them, 

Old earth is but a stage, 
We fume and fret and curse and sweat, 

We storm and dance and rage. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 55 

We fight and challenge, blind and kill, 

And live by rule and text, 
And down they gaze on us and thrill, 

And breathless wait the next. 

And then they laugh, O how they laugh! 

Their very souls ashape 
With fun of living while they watch 

Our game of give and take. 

We slay or torture, pray or preach, 

And grovel on the clod; 
We smirk and sputter, scold and teach, 

And implicate our God. 



THE WEST 

Wings that are glancing, wings of my soul, 
That speeding like arrows fly to their goal; 
Wings that have cut the keen ethers above, 
O carry me on to the West of my love ! 

The West it is magic, perspective and fire, 

Its peaks are like daggers thrust up by desire; 

It is Tyre, it is Sidon and Ophir in one, 

This land by the waters, this land of the sun. 



56 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



O LET ME SING! 

Just one night let me sing to you; 

The years are many and long! 
One night remembered forever 

Through my heavenly gift of song. 

I would pour out my soul in music, 
With tones that should carry far, 

Like the longing bird in the zenith, 
Who covets the distant star. 

O just one night I would stand, Love, 

Beneath your casement alone, 
And strike the gamut of living 

In rhythm for you, my own! 

For the years stretch on into nowhere, 
The bird and the star must part; 

But for one rare night — O yield, Love, 
To the mad, wild song of my heart ! 

O BEAUTIFUL BOY! 

There is often in my dreaming, 
Though the vision is but seeming, 
A fair Levantine country where the stately stone-pine 
grew. 

In the spell of dear romancing, 
Is Ariadne dancing 
Where the restless sea remembers its springtime love of 
you. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 57 

The ghost of Ischia lying 

On the waters that are sighing, 
Where Crete is floating dimly on a mystic haze of blue; 

And Corfu's swooning splendor, 

Makes a rhapsody so tender 
That my heart and soul are weeping with tragic thoughts 
of you. 

Only in a dream I find you, 

With the garlands that must bind you 

To the happy realm of laughter, the magic Southern 
seas, 

Lost in some fair land of singing 
Where the wind-blown bells are ringing, 

And the lyre is struck divinely by fingers of the breeze. 

All of spring was woven round you 

Where Eros searching found you, 
And Diomede was fruitful in its flowery beds of love; 

But Apollo spied you playing 

By Eurotas, nor delaying 
Struck with deadly aim and malice from his fiery realm 
above. 

Yet the hyacinth is growing 

Where your sacred blood was flowing, 
For the bloom is self-revealing, its petals stamped with 
woe. 

And I forlorn am grieving, 

No joy today relieving 
The pain of your departing in the ages long ago. 



58 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Ah! The stone-pine tells the story, 
And the grapes of Hellas glory 

In libations poured so freely for Beauty, Spring and 
Love ; 

And the wind bells whisper faintly, 
Of the Boy so young and saintly, 

His virtues purple-tinted like the ringed and tragic dove. 



A BROKEN WING 

A bird flew heavenward, soaring high, 
To poise in blue, blue air and sing; 

An archer saw it upward fly, 

And broke its glorious, fluttering wing. 

A Poet rose to spaces lone, 

To pour his music from the skies; 

Hate aimed and struck where he had flown, 
The singer fell no more to rise. 

Alas, frail bird with broken wing! 

The Poet's hope like thine is dead ; 
No more does genius rise to sing, 

The Muse in agony has fled. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 59 



O SING AND SING MORE 

O sing and sing more, 

Sweet lark in high spaces, 

To Venus or Mars 
Your melody pour, 

Along the waste places 
Far out to the stars! 

Sing beauty and love, 
Send harmonies swelling, 

To verge of the sky 
Around and above, 

That music impelling 
May fall from on high. 



THE ROSES 

Pluck not the rose but kiss it 
Full, full upon the mouth; 

'Tis quivering with the rapture 
And the glamour of the South. 

Bruise not sweet Love with frenzy, 
But breathe its perfumed breath; 

In tenderness is paradise, 
In mad desire is death. 



60 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

O, music turned to witchery 
Warm blushes on the flower. 

When west winds fan the roses 
In Love's entangled bower! 

O, wine and fair Adonis! 

Aroma on the breeze 
That steals from fragrant gardens 

Of far Hesperides! 



O MEMORY! 

Dear Heart! I loved you once long since; 

Remember, can you not? 
That kiss, that rapture quivering joy 

We've lost, but ne'er forgot. 

Though you are you, and I am I, 

We two were one that day, 
But ah ! the kiss on gauzy wings 

Has softly flown away. 

A sweetheart once, a stranger now; 

In memory still my lover. 
The real is fair, but O the dream 

Where fluttering kisses hover! 

The dream! The dream! Once bliss new-born 

Gleamed lambent from your eyes, 
While I, disdaining desert earth, 

Was lost in paradise. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 61 

Yes, I am I, and you are you — 

Alas, that other day ! 
Eros has flown; but memory, love, 

Can never pass away. 



THE SCARAB 

Old, a gem before the Parthenon 
Rose like a dream in snow 
On rock-ribbed, famed Acropolis; 
Or doomed and sad Jerusalem 
Re-echoed with a Master's voice. 

Old as the pillared halls of Thebes, 
And shrivelled, mummied king of Khem, 
This scarab, cut, mysterious, clean, 
Fresh from antiquity's shrunk hand, 
The subtle spell has brought along 
Of ancient time and silent land. 



THE LOTUS— FANCY 

Ah! love before had ne'er been spoken, 
Nor lover's tragic heart been broken, 
Till these soft, azure, lotus eyes 
Looked upward to the vaulting skies. 



62 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

And I, in shimmering, golden fancies, 
Have revelled in phantasmal dances 
With moonbeams, trembling, timid, fair, 
That stole along the silent air 
To kiss the lotus o'er and o'er, 
And thrill my soul forevermore. 

O Fancy ! lock the door of day, 
Lest love ecstatic pass away. 



"WHAT IS A FRIEND?" 

Near to the brink of some high peak I go, 
And watching the dim, fading vale below, 
I dumbly wonder: is this then the end? 
O speak, my Soul! What is a friend? 

Far out at sea the billows melt like dreams, 
The ocean gulfs its transient, golden gleams, 
As once I lost in dread embrace of night, 
A love whose eyes were wells of liquid light. 

Is aught secure? On what may I depend? 

speak, my Soul! What is a friend? 

Through crowded city streets I stray, 
And seek the Lost both night and day. 

1 search the faces that I pass, 
And searching breathe, alas! alas! 
What is a friend? 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



YOUR FRIENDS 

Your friends, with eyes like sunsets, 

That lean on shadows grey, 
And smiles as vague as Buddha's 

When Dawn kneels down to Day, 
Hang on your dim remembrance, 

With pleasure and with gloom, 
For lives are bound to lives and lives, 

By womb of Earth — the tomb. 



TONES CELESTIAL 

(March 10, 1915, on hearing the compositions of 
Count Axel Raoul Wachtmeister.) 

I have loved pure tones terrestrial, 

Earthly music, virile, strong, 
All the gamut of grim matter, 

From bass to lyric song. 

I have loved the growl of thunder, 

The boom of mighty seas, 
The rattle of the shingle, 

The whimper of the breeze. 

I have loved the blare of trumpets, 

The tom-tom, drum and flute, 
Barbaric, pagan rhapsodies 

On zither, harp or lute. 



64 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Ah ! my soul is tuned to frenzy, 
Like pipes of magic Pan, 

Ah ! my heart leaps wild to singing 
Of primal earth and man. 

But now I hear in depths of azure, 
Falling sheer as from on high, 

Downward, downward, nearer, nearer, 
A rain of music from the sky. 

Grand contraltos, pure sopranos, 
Weird fantasias hurrying fast, 

Mighty fugues of earth translated, 
Witching melodies recast. 

Hark ! 'Tis magic of great spaces ! 

Echoes roam and shiver there, 
Madly seeking natal places, 

In rapture or despair. 

Hymns of ghostly Goths and Vandals, 
Trained to sing with morning stars, 

Love notes of the Saxon Siren 
Calling from the river bars. 

Faint stornello flying softly, 

Like Aphrodite's dove, 
Tonal tints of Southern oceans, 

The fluttering wings of Love. 

A wizard waves his wand, and lo ! 

Harmonics from on high, 
Are caught by flute and harp and lyre, 

And flung back to the sky. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 65 



FRAGMENT 

Thou towerest silent, lone, O Rock! Eternal Truth! 
The fiercest onslaughts of our narrow creeds 
Are but the touch of vultures' wings 
Upon thy crags. 



FOREVER 

(To Champa) 

Once in Greece the gods were busy, 
Forming friendships hard and fast; 

Then Athena called Artemis: 

"Make one friendship that will last; 

"One to stand the test of ages, 
Distance, helplessness, despair; 

One defying rules of sages, 

One that's constant everywhere. 

"Whether felt at Himalaya, 
Persia, Khem, eternal Rome, 

Ancient Troas, grim Parnassus, 
High Olympus, here at home. 

"Make this friendship in the furnace 
Of experience fierce with fire, 

Throw in love, aye, adoration, 
Tears and laughter, pain, desire. 



66 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Drive these twin-locked souls asunder, 

Oceans, sons, put between, 
Yet perchance they'll meet to wonder, 

And live again the old-time dream. 

"In some tender soft-eyed glory, 

Of virgin land or fairy fen, 
An ancient, half- forgotten story 

Will break love's rusty chains again. 

"Eyes will flash at eyes and kindle, 

Embers smouldering into flame; 
Hands will clasp with hands in rapture, 

Memory calls the ancient name. 

"All the mornings, all the evenings, 
Hopes and longings centering then, 

On this recurring magic union, 

When friend with friend shall meet again. 



Artemis glanced along her quiver, 

Strung taut her fatal bow and strong, 

This huntress of the mount and river, 
This virgin of the land of Song. 

Athene in upper air was waiting, 
The aegis round her, stormy, drear, 

Her spear the lightning; truth impatient, 
Wrung with rapture, stung with fear. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 67 

And yet and yet Artemis pondered, 

Her splendid being sifting light 
As gleams the haunting moon o'er Hellas, 

On stream and mountain pass at night. 

At last she raised her eyes to heaven, 

And caught Athene's commanding glance, 

She saw the shadow on her aegis, 

The keen-edged glitter of her lance. 

"This miracle, this ring-like wonder, 

Is forged already, I declare ! 
Nor flash of yours nor threatening thunder, 

Can make eternity more fair. 

"True friendship is of past and future, 

The life behind, the life ahead; 
'Tis never born, begun, created, 

'Tis never lost; 'tis never dead. 

"Beyond the Gods is the Eternal. 

Athene begone! Mad boars are free. 
Rise, rise to regions more supernal, 

And spare the hunter's moon to me." 



A FAIR CALIFORNIA DAY 

Like a dream of a dream were the mountains, 
Like the mist of a dream was the sea, 

And paradise captured the valley, 
The vista, the woodland and me. 



70 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



A RHAPSODY 

Immeasurable blue., far-reaching space! 

Where in the ether, where, in what place, 

Tired with my seeking, tired with my flight. 

Shall I rest me this night? 

Sirius, color and fire, star of desire, 

To music aeonic I've come from afar, 

To wander and wander around you, my star ! 

And yet have I flown from the Earth — little Earth, 

Where life without hope is despair. 

The place of my birth is a clod 

Which rushes through space with a sun for its god, 

Whose passionate face 

Is darkness to you, darkness to you. 

With wings of the soul have I come 
And followed a dove, the ghost of a dove, 
In search of my love. 

Speak, speak, is she where the splendor, the glare 

Are lost in the azures of space? 

A dove ! cease your race with a star 

And tell me how far must I fly 

Ere paradise lie on the breast of the sky? 

No note, nor an echo, but silence so sad 
That sobbing of grief would make the heart glad; 
Deeps ever more deep, height piled upon height, 
Day dead at its birth, night buried by night. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 71 

Alas in rapture's madness, 
There sleeps the germ of sadness; 
In womb of ecstasy 
Is infant misery. 

Old Earth has drawn me back, aye back, 

Though I fled from her arms 

On the track of a sun, 

And followed a dove, 

The ghost of a dove, 

In search of my love. 



How the wind doth tease the leaves ! 

How maliciously it grieves 

The cracking branches, 

Shaking with its blows and breaking the great trees ! 

How the sea melts into foam, 

As if to woo the land and roam 

On islands' rounded breast were bliss, 

And love and life ebbed in a kiss; 

And kissing, how it steals 

Some treasure from the fields 

Of shining sands ! 

Soul of the winds ! 

Grim spirit of the sea! 

Twin brothers, speak to me! 

Tell me wherefore is your madness, 

Your misery and your gladness ? 



72 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Have you lost her ; have you found her ; 
Is endless blue of space around her; 
Or has she subtly vanished, 
By heaven's fiat banished 
Evermore ? 



The night broods o'er the deep, 

And grief and I with hands together 

Upon the strand may walk and weep, 

'Mid wintry winds and chilling weather, 

While shrouds of deathless beings glisten, 

Who float upon the waves and listen 

With dull eyes staring at the sky 

So vacant, pitiless and high, 

A heaven with stars and moon departed, 

And rayless to the broken hearted. 



I dreamed- — 'twas when the crescent lingered on the 

blue — 
I dreamed, O Love, I dreamed of you! 
Your eyes glanced backward as you passed, 
'Twas passion's look, ah me! the last. 
Eternity is long again. 

But where, O where, mine own, and when, 
On what cool, far-off silvery strand, 
What tropic, green, enchanted land, 
What island, or what emerald sea, 
Will you bring rapture unto me? 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 73 

Black clouds, put out the star 

Which glares on me from far; 

I would be bridegroom of the moon 

And bask in borrowed light. 

I hate the lustre of the noon, 

I love the shades of night. 

Passion burning me like fire, 

Freeing from my heart desire 

Which leaps to heaven and drinks 

The wine of stars, or downward sinks, 

And revels there, 

With vicious phantoms of despair, 

At what eternal, ghastly cost 

Am I myself disgraced and lost? 



'Twas once I lay beside a placid brook, 

Where lilies vain with beauty look, 

And watching their reflections gleam, 

I lost myself within a dream. 

I heard the bended grass that grieves, 

Tell plaintive secrets to the leaves; 

I saw the field of grain afire 

With captured sunbeams, and yet higher 

On distant mountain's gleaming crest, 

Beheld a black-winged bird at rest. 

Would she descend or upward go? 

I waited. From the mountain, lo, she soared; 

Then noiseless sank and poised 

Beside the placid river bank; 



74 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Unerring, quickly there she found 
The ghastly dead upon the ground; 
With carrion gorged, she strove to rise 
Endowed with wings, and yet the skies 
Were vague, impossible and high, 
For fool of lust she could not fly. 



I wake and wrench the chains that bind me, 

For wanton passion has confined me. 

I tear and wrestle with the gyves 

That hold me to a thousand lives. 

I wring my clenched hands in prayer 

To one who dwelleth everywhere; 

And like a mist upon the sea, 

Comes brooding peace and shelters me. 



Melody faint as the sound of the dew 
That falls on the roses; 
Music that fluttered and flew 
With the bird on the wing; 
Songs that come sighing over the waste 
Where echoes are dying; 

Melody, show me your beauty, your color, your form ! 
Conquer the rage, the passion, the storm 
Of my heart! 

Siren of magic, full-throated lark, 
Pour out your music, sing to the dark, 
Sing unto death! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 75 

Nightingale, torture my ears with delight, 
Warble to women all the long night ! 
Passionate dove, rain notes from above 
Though Venus should suffer with love ! 

Even in chaos harmonies tremble; 
In storm and disaster, sweet notes assemble. 
In agony's shriek love's laughter is glad. 
Death marshals a chorus; the harps of the sky> 
Strung true to the pitch of the stars as they fly, 
Are melody mad. 

The ghost of the dove will woo me along, 
And I 'mid the clouds am thrilling with song. 



O LET ME DREAM MY DREAM! 

O let me dream my dream ! 

Why crudely break the sun-lit spell 
And drag me down from my blue sky, 

To your cold scientific hell 
Where visions fade and poets die? 
O let me dream my dream! 

I've had no joys like yours of yore, 
Nor gems wore I, nor cloth of gold, 

Nor fair, far lands have wandered o'er; 
I'm young, I'm young, and you are old. 



76 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

O let me dream my dream! 

My mystic world alone have I, 
Your cruel facts are my despair; 

'Twere better that I droop and die 
Than that my hopes lie shattered there. 
O let me dream my dream! 



BUT ALAS! 

Once into my soul 

Came the peacock shimmer of wings, 
That subtle, that flagrant delight 

That flames but to pale in the night, 
And dims but to glimmer in flight. 

And drunk with the wine of my madness 
I prayed the Eternal to pause 

And time to revel in gladness, 
That all my soul's rapture 

Might crystallize then to a gem. 
But alas ! 



A CHEAT 

The sea with fingers white and thin, 
Takes living jewels from the sand; 

With hiss and roar he rakes them in, 
And pays in weeds the beggared land. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 77 



FOAM 

The rock with silent taunt and sneer, 
Stares scornfully across the brine 

In strength content; and yet the sea 
With foam and sputter whispers, "Mine. 



ISOLATE 

One lonesome ship upon the sea, 
One camel on the scorching plain, 

One bird in heaven, and I — and I 
Am with myself again. 



EFFICIENT, PRIMITIVE AND MORE 

Efficient, primitive and more — 

My hating soul will gangrene, die. 

Revolt I must, my heart is sore, 

From these most sickening terms I fly. 

Tautology is naught indeed 

To "cave man," "mate" and "primal need" ; 
And repetition stands abashed 

At tongue-end phrases, glib, rehashed. 



78 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Why get we back to herd with brutes, 
Unshackle instincts held in leash, 

Or prate initial useless strength 

To scale the sky and stick and line 

To gauge its azure length? 

We boast of our efficiency 

In one long bluffing breath, 
And next of our primeval gifts 

Of sex and blood and death. 

And when crude man calls loud his mate, 

As roars the lion 'cross the sands, 
We plug our ears and calmly wait 

In guru-pose, with meek limp hands; 
For pass, it will, this fakir's God 

That kills the Modern with its fist, 
Dissolves veneer, displays the raw, 

And scrapes and scrubs until the gist 
Of life, the bare initiative wrist, 

Is pulsing with efficiency, 

And cramps and brutal twist 

Of idiocy. 

* * * 

Come back, Illusion! Beauty, come! 

Wear all your clothes and frills and lace, 
Paint out your scars, evolve and grow, 

O come with smiling old time grace! 
Come, hypnotize and wield your spell, 

Till dreams shall once again be true. 
Wave but your hand, and all the world 

Will kneel again to love and you. 



. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 79 



MISERY 

Come to my arms, O Misery ! 

My heart is sick with sighs. 
Great angel o'er me brooding, come! 

Fold round me your black wings, 
Gaze in my mournful eyes, 

O Misery, Misery, come! 

To see you fluttering there 

Drear, drear, beyond compare, 

Is more than I can bear. 
There's light of fire in hell; 

Break now this awful spell, 
Come Misery, Misery, come ! 

A pearl hast thou concealed; — 
'Tis mine, black Misery, mine! 

'Twas tinted by the wine 
From my impassioned veins. 

Give me the gem, the glory 
Of our dark, tragic story. 

Misery, Misery, come! 



FORGETTING 

Long, coiling, fog-swept Lethe, 
Silent, slumbering, free, 

I'd drink of thy still waters, 
And lose myself in thee ! 



80 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

I'd yield as lyric music 

Yields to the sway of rhyme, 

And blend as fading distance 
Forever blends with time. 

Forgetting joy and sorrow, 
Sweet Lethe, still and grey, 

I'll drink of thee; to-morrow 
Shall banish yesterday. 



THE FIRST AND LAST 

I kissed you! 'Twas the first one. 

I never shall forget. 
The dew was on the rose leaves, 

The garden grass was wet. 

And tears were in your startled eyes, 
And mist fell from the blue; 

When all the world was weeping, 
I said farewell to you. 

I kissed you! 'Twas the last one. 

Though lonely years have passed, 
The first kiss when the dew fell, 

O dearest, was the last! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 81 



O SHINING MOON 

O shining Moon ! 

Why tremble on the surging deep? 
O'er me above you softly float, 

And yet on breast of ocean sleep, 
O Moon! O Moon! 

And I in heavenly azure sail, 

On, on like you, in sunlight's gleam, 

Yet here below, on earth's rough breast 
A clod, I kiss the sod and dream. 



FAR LAND 

Far sky, whose zenith bids the sun stand still, 

Far land, where serpent crawls and vulture flies, 

Where trembling moons have swooned with thrill 
Of dead-black, fatal eyes ! 

Far land of amorous joy and flame, 

Far land, far land without a name ! 



RUBIES 

Blood fell softly drop by drop, 
From quivering wounds of pain, 

And rubies grew and multiplied 
In this red, gruesome rain. 



82 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



ORCHESTRAL 

I hear the symphonies of harps celestial, 
That falling softly on the ear terrestrial, 

Lull me to dreams of ecstasy. 
I catch the echo of a far voice singing; 
Through centuries a hymn is ringing, 

As though by Miriam sung triumphantly. 

A song comes stealing over years of sighing, 
To soothe the heart which otherwise were dying 

In dreary throes of agony. 
From distant, misty, long-forgotten ages, 
The tones of lonely ones, the Sages, 

In music flood my life unceasingly. 

Ah ! never lone, for mystic ones supernal 
From out of all the universe eternal 

Seek and combine true hearts mysteriously. 
Those subtle souls that know not time nor nation, 
But in the vast, unlimited creation, 

Find me my loved and lost unerringly. 

And when in stubborn mood or bitter sorrow 
I ponder on the unrevealed to-morrow, 
I catch the tones of symphonies celestial, 
That falling softly on the ear terrestrial, 

Lull me to dreams of ecstasy. 
From far off times and climes still softly ringing,, 
I hear the echo of a voice yet singing 

The hymn that Miriam sang triumphantly. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 83 



THE SLEEP OF BRAHM 

Brahm slept. 

Long since the universe of suns 
Had passed away as do our dreams, 
And like a statue frozen Darkness 
Sat upon the throne. 
The never-ending sky- 
Had rolled upon itself 
As doth a scroll, 
While gently rose and fell 
The rhythmic pulse of God. 

Far, far where thought goes not, 

Into the distance far 

Stole Echo on her naked feet 

Through night and endless space, 

Alive, alone. 

Nay, not alone, 

For near her glowing in the dark 

As fireflies gleam, 

Were living memories 

Quivering on the wing, 

Dim recollections hovering close, 

Enchanted by the passion of her voice, 

For Echo sang of love and hate, 

Of life and death. 

Even the ceaseless drip of tears 

That once had fallen on a stone, 

An army's solemn tread 



84 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Like beat of surf upon the strand, 

The mountains' lava speech, 

The bittern's cry, 

The hiss of fiery tongues 

Where yellow snakes of flame 

Once shot across the breast 

Of new-born suns, 

The groans of Stellar Mothers 

Bringing forth their young, 

The crash and clash 

From shock of star on star 

Mad in each other's arms, 

The thunder of the universe 

When skies bombarded skies 

That pregnant burst 

With lightning storms, — 

All this is Echo's voice, 

While firefly memories 

Gleamed and paled. 

The blood of tragedy 

Dyes red the cheek of youth. 

Alas, and they had not forgot! 

The eyes of many memories stared 

Far down the spaces 

Whence flew patient Time, 

And gazed on ancient dawns 

When iEons born from iEons 

Painted bright those morning skies ; 

And on some fated planet 

Saw the Immortal — mortal, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 85 

Dead — alive, 
A winged man 
Whose ether plumes 
He strove to hide, 
A clod — a God. 

Brahm dreamed a dream 

That once in far off days 

He quivered in the aspen's leaves. 

And sucked the breast of Earth, 

Then burrowed in the ground 

A crawling thing, 

Till on a summer's morn 

He saw the light, 

And hot for blood 

In jungles roved 

A red-tongued beast of prey. 

At last he stood erect — 
A Man, 

And climbed upon a cross, 
And died. 

And while he dreamed 

A woman's voice 

Rose pure and passionate, 

High, high above 

The echo paean of the vanished stars, 

And wove upon the soul of Brahm 

The magic spell of human love. 



86 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



THE MASTER 

A hermit, silent as a mountain crag, 
For years a thinker, dumb; 
Then thought in thunder breaks the spell, 
And lo, the Master speaks! 

Night drugs her victim till he prostrate lies 
A breathing puppet in her arms; 
But day salutes him with her fawning kiss, 
And rousing, drunk with nectar of her lips, 
He marries her and lives. 

Rest sleepily rocks to and fro, 

And suckles Action at her breast, 

The Master dreams and dreams and dreams, 

Then wakes to level mountains to the plain, 

And wrench the continents apart. 



HAVE I FORGOT? 

If I am I again and yet again, 

Why know I not the wherefore and the when? 

If vanished years and friends are ever mine, 

Then Memory's shock should thrill like ancient wine. 

Thief-like she steals and takes me unaware, 
A vision veiled, coquettish, fair. 
Insidious Memory, tantalizing, weak, 
Thy proof I ask. Speak, Memory, speak! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 87 

Reveal the homes where I have grown and dwelt, 
The mother soils where I have thought and felt, 
The mountain's crest, the inland or the sea 
Where other suns have flashed their beams on me. 

Around me weave the rainbow-tinted spell 

Of love's one ecstasy, and tell 

Of one dear face, O let me hear once more 

Forgotten music I have heard before ! 

Shock me with rapture, magic, fine, 

And haunt with passions rare, divine. 

Ah ! vaguer than sweet Zephyr's faint good-bye, 

Is Memory's answer shading to a sigh; 

But Reason, on his icy throne, the Czar, 

Hurls logic through the spaces far: 

"Set is the black, imperial seal 

On buried ages which can none reveal 

Save one, the Prophet; he and he alone 

From off this sacred tomb may lift the stone. 

He feels the mystic, subtle ebb and flow 

Of tidal aeons, and can backward go 

Till in some ancient time and land he sip 

The potent nectar from the rose's lip. 

"On vantage point of now he stands, 
And gazes far o'er many lands; 
Along the centuries casts his glance, 
In lightning flash and dizzy trance. 
Himself he sees in many, One, 
And like the rising, setting sun, 



88 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

He feels the earth turn east away 
To find him young another day. 

"The spinning universe whirls round and round, 
But poised, alive, he hears the echo sound 
Of ancient strains; the Coming Age he sees, 
And scents the spices on the unborn breeze." 
Have I forgot? s 

Prophetic causes ! Seeming mocking lies — 
Cocoons ! and big with butterflies. 
Your shells are crushed! Concealed effects appear; 
The future and the past are here. 



HERSELF 

A Naiad gazed into a brook 

And spied a vision there; 
Each day she came to slyly look, 

For it was heavenly fair. 

To it she prayed and kisses threw, 
She loved it more and more; 

Her admiration throve and grew, 
For self she did adore, 

But knew it not, till one sad morn 
She learned the simple truth, 

And startled, looked with eyes forlorn 
On her reflected youth. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 89 

The conscious Naiad — Ah, 'tis true! — 

Can ne'er herself forget, 
But seeks her own sweet face to view, 

And blushing, worships yet. 



HUSH!— A FRAGMENT 

Dead is the Sun on the breast of the West; 

In the dark are the slayer and slain. 
Hush! Dawn has been born mid the shrouds of the 
night, 

And the East is a mother again. 



LONE BIRD 

Around thee heaven, beneath, the sea; 
Immensity, thyself and me; 
For I on phantom wings have flown 
To sing with thee, who sang alone. 



FRAGMENT 

From wild Atlantic's rugged shores, 
To calm Pacific's silvery sea, 

From Arctic cold to tropic heat, 

There floats the Ensign of the Free. 



90 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Float on, if one stripe shall be left yon! 

Float on, if one star but be true! 
Float on in your splendor of color, 

Float on in your red, white and blue! 



SERAPHITA 

Seraphitus ! Seraphita ! 
In skies far off thou soarest 
Toward that which thou adorest. 
Thy gleaming hair like waves of light 
Against the background of the night 
Shines round thee — and thine eyes I — 

My sad soul in its fancies 
Still catches backward glances, 
As higher yet and higher, breathing 
Airs of heaven, while softly wreathing 
Mystic clouds that veil the sight 
From wilder splendors of the night, 
Thou risest in the Infinite. 



THE SONG 

A singer wandering over earth, 
Could tarry nowhere long, 

But fled to brighter, kinder stars, 
And fleeing left his song. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 91 

Alone, the song in restless quest 

Among the race of men, 
Is searching vainly for its home> 

The singer's heart again. 



LOVE, BE KIND! 

O Love, be kind, the spell is broken, 
And on my heart there falls no token 
Of all our burning thoughts unspoken. 
Love, be kind ! 

The vanished bird will come again 
And hover over moor and glen 
Where once it sang, and then, and then, 
O Love, be kind! 

But if farewell thy heart is saying, 
Like passing breeze with wild rose playing, 
Go thou, nor blast my life with staying! 
O Love, be kind! 



LOVERS 

The Moon is high, Venus and Jupiter 
With bliss entrancing 
Upon each other's beams are glancing, 
And I — my heart is thine. 



92 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Blue heaven, I lift beseeching eyes 
And longing gaze on endless skies, 
Dim spaces, scintillating fire, 
And starry passion, hope, desire, 
Ah Love! 



POISE 

Midway 'tis calm, 

For Hate flew East, and Love flew West; 
My heart beats softly in my breast. 
Midway 'tis calm. 



SORROW 
O Sorrow, 

Love looks down into your eyes 
And trembling turns about and flies! 
No friend have you, and drear the land 
Around, and far the desert sand, 
For Death you pray and pray and pray; 
He too in scorn has turned away. 



MONA LISA 

Smile on! I hear faint melody, 
An echo from far Italy. 
Sweet, subtle face of witchery 
Smile ever, ever on. . 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



RED ROSE 

Red rose, with thorn under cover, 
Pierce not the hand of your lover, 

But wrap yourself round with green leaves ! 
Seduce him — O never, O never ! 
The pain of your stabbing, forever 

It grieves, Ah, it grieves ! 

Harlot in red! Scented flame! 

Your petals too fiery for dew, 
Paint not your rapt lover with shame 

Caught subtly from you! 



O ROSE! 

Bliss nestles in your heart, O rose ! 

To depths of pain your thorns belong. 
Love pierced is gory tragedy, 

Love kissed, immortal song. 



WHERE? 
Where? 

In heaven? Nay, Elysian music 
Would drown our voices there. 
The light would blind our eyes with splendor, 
But where, O dearest, where? 



94 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

In some fair half-enchanted region 
Where clouds and sunshine blend, 

And ice melts under burning kisses, 
I'd speak with thee, my friend. 

Or where the skies in mist descending 

Seek solace in the sea, 
And happy tones with sad are blending, 

I'd meet and talk with thee. 



A MEMORY 

A face like the early morning, 
With never a semblance of care, 

And Tantalus eyes of beauty 
Shaded by mischievous hair. 

Her lips, they were begging my kisses, 
Her arms were entrancingly white, 

I thought that I had forgotten; 
The past is the present to-night. 

Mystery, Orphan of Friendship ! 
Far, far 'long the file of the years 

1 seem to be peering through moonbeams 
That gleam with the dew of my tears. 

There's a vanishing wing of a sea bird, 

A shimmer of silvery spray, 
And pebbles — we found them together — 

Alas! we threw them away. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 95 

Blue eyes ! Swift time goes ever 

Toward the life that is yet to be. 
Blue eyes ! Their light shines never 

On the sheen of the summer sea. 

O face like the early morning, 

A stranger to sorrow and care, 
O Tantalus eyes of beauty 

Shaded by mischievous hair! 



VANISHED 

Vanished ! — a page from the book of my life, 
A leaf torn out by the hand of Fate, 

But I learned it well, like a song to sing, 
And I ponder still and sadly wait. 

For the coming of one who once does come, 
For the voice of one who spake before, 

Ah, cruel Fate ! I stand alone, 

And call and call from the ocean shore. 

But the sun comes up in the sickly East, 
The sun goes down in the blood-red West, 

The sea is grieved, and the stars are sad, 
And the bird goes home to a lonely nest. 

Vanished! — where in the ethers, where 

Is the light blown dim by the breath of woe? 

O tell me, angels or demons, how 
To kindle again the flame aglow! 



96 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

He went as a star of the dawn goes out 

In the light of a summer day, 
He went like the clouds ; he went like the moon, 

He smiled, he sighed, and he stole away. 

O Grief, thou bird with a brooding wing, 
Thou bird still hovering over my head, 

Fly on and away to the cypress grove, 
Stay not till my heart is cold and dead! 



TO HELEN 

Ah, do you still remember 

The grove in Attica, 

The grassy mound, 

The rustling leaves, and me? 

Oft when your glance is upward cast 

I seem to see those other eyes, 

So like your own 

That once swept longingly 

The waste of blue 

That sank and melted 

In the iEgean sea. 

A memory faint and sweet 
Brings back a waking dream, 
When one, tall, beautiful and white, 
A breathing statue by my side, 
Spake calmly of Olympian gods 
As we to-day of heaven talk. 
O tell me, was it you? 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 97 



CAPTURED 

Hast thou beheld the temple, an imprisoned prayer, 
Or, listening, heard the statue's ardent sighs ? 

And beauty captured from the blue, blue air 
Hast thou beheld in woman's azure eyes ? 

The silence throttles the gods of sound, 

The calm within its breast the storm conceals, 

And matchless language lazily sleeps on 
Till rushing speech its heritage reveals. 



HAPPINESS 

I thought to find her in elusive dream, 
I looked in vain, she was not there. 

I plucked a rose by Sharon's sacred stream, 
It drooped and seemed no longer fair. 

I stared in Love's impassioned sphinx-like eyes, 

But smiling Happiness had fled. 
Those fatal depths were mystic mocking lies, 

And Hope, alas! was withered, dead. 

Ah ! I had looked away too far, too far, 

At phantom islands in the air, 
Or some enthralling, fascinating star, 

She was not there, she was not there ! 



98 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



THY NAME? 

Before a dank and shadowy secret place 

Within my soul or out, I care not which, 

I sat one time, and peered into its gloom 

Until from cobweb maze and mystery 

There stole a cautious unfamiliar thing, 

A puzzling aspect that I could not name. 

'Twas neither man, nor insect, beast nor bird, 

Impalpable, with shifting eyes, 

Perchance a snake, and opaline and green. 

"Thy name?" said I, "Thy name?" 

It turned upon me its peculiar orbs 

And glanced askance, then pursed its livid lips 

As if to speak. 

"Thy name?" Once more said I, "Thy name?" 

"Pray, dost thou know me not?" 

His voice, a whisper in the dusk, 

"Behind a mortal's back full liberty I crave, 

And hide-and-seek with human imps I play; 

The beast will have me not at all, 

To men and devils am I all in all. 

Suspicion ! Aye, Suspicion is my name." 

And slowly back he crawled whence first he came. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 99 



HAPPINESS— ALAS ! 

She came so unexpectedly, 

When I had thought her miles away, 
In Venus, Jupiter or Mars. 

I prayed and prayed to her to stay, 
But back she flew among the stars, 
So unexpectedly ! 

A willful jade, perverse is she, 
Upon my knees I flattered, plead, 

Cajoled, and promised more and more; 
She threw a kiss and wished me dead, 

And skyward higher still did soar. 
Perverse is she ! 



THERE'S A BOY IN THE HOUSE 

There's a boy in the house, I can tell you, 
Of that you are surely aware; 

His cap lies under the table, 
His overcoat under the chair. 

His boots are off in the corner, 
His playthings scattered about; 

Yes, a boy in the house, I assure you, 
Of that you've never a doubt. 



100 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Forever and ever he's hungry 
And crying for something to eat, 

So fond of sugar and candy 
And honey or anything sweet. 

And he's always torn and dirty, 
Though I wash him every time 

I can catch the little rascal, 
This mischievous boy of mine. 

And he fights — O I hate to tell it — 
With the boy that's over the way, 

For he comes to me bruised and crying 
From his battles every day. 

He's an angel, I will acknowledge, 
And in life he is sure to win, 

But then he has — but a touch of course — 
Just a touch of original sin. 

Yes, a boy in the house, you would know it 
By the wrinkles crossing my brow, 

By the gray hairs coming from somewhere, 
I don't know when nor how. 

By the slates and broken pencils, 
By my album tattered and torn, 

By the jacket minus buttons, 
And the muddy shoes half-worn; 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 101 

By the gun and the bow and arrow, 

And the cunning, broken chair, 
By the top beneath the table, 

And his playthings everywhere. 

At night when the house is quiet, 

And I rest my weary head, 
He comes to me cross and sleepy, 

And wants to be put to bed. 

Too tired to kiss his mother, 

Too tired to walk up-stairs, 
Too tired to eat any supper, 

Too tired to say his prayers. 

And I sing him to sleep in the twilight, 

And tuck him up ever so tight, 
And brush back the tangled ringlets, 

As I kiss my boy good-night. 

And I sit and watch by his bed awhile, 

And wonder how it would be, 
If the little fellow should go away 

And never come back to me. 

Then I push up the golden masses 

That tumble over his brow, 
And wonder if any future 

Could be as good as now. 



102 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Too big to sit in his mother's lap, 

Too big to skip and run, 
The day is coming, Mamma, 

Too big for boyish fun; 

Too big for his crib and little chair, 
Too big to play with the girls, 

Too big for the ruffles round his neck, 
Too big for the baby curls. 

He'll be wanting shirts and neckties, 
All the fixings that he can, 

To look exactly as he should, 
To look just like a man. 

Yes, a boy in the house, I can tell you, 
Of that you are surely aware, 

His cap lies under the table, 
His overcoat under the chair. 



ASHES— A FRAGMENT 

She crouches by the ashes, gone the fire, 

Nor is there ember left or smouldering spark. 

Her soul is dead to flutter of desire, 

She whispers with the phantoms of the dark. 

The ash of love's red heart lies scattered there, 
Her heart, no more in pain and j oy to beat ; 

The ash is on her long and trailing hair, 
That falls neglected to her weary feet. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 103 

'Tis greyer than a shrouded winter sky,, 

Alas, love's cruel, fatal dart! 
'Tis paler than the sick who droop and die, 

The ash of her impassioned heart. 



PAIN— WHAT ? 

What devil horned or imp of fire 

Shocks the trailing nerves with pain 
Upward, onward to the brain? 
What ethereal phantom dire, 
Sent from inquisition straight, 
Merges into life, like Fate, 
To stab and burn and tantalize, 
Till, desperate, man in frenzy dies? 



HARPSTRINGS 

A quivering harp, this soul of mine, 

All day the songs are played; 
Upon the strings of this sad thing 

Some harmony is made. 
Its chords are struck by phantom hands 

Of ghosts of all things known, 
And ofttimes mad, wild rhapsody 

Is made for me alone. 



104- DREAMS OF HELLAS 

'Tis like the strung iEolian; 

The sobbing wind, the sea, 
Are mystic players strange and weird 

Upon this harp to me. 
Ring on, sing on your melody, 

Or shiver with the touch 
Of some rough finger on the strings 

You fear and love so much. 

From out the trees, from out the air, 

From briny, weed-fringed shells, 
Come phantoms stealing one by one, 

And each his story tells 
Upon this harp, this quivering, 

Shivering harp of mine, 
Responsive to the plaintive spell, 

O mother Earth, of thine ! 

All days are but the one to-day, 

The summer moons may go, 
The sky be dark, and on my head 

May fall the winter snow. 
It matters not, my harp with age 

Will sweeter, stronger be, 
And on its strings will still be played 

The magic songs for me. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 105 



A FRAGMENT 

A pilgrim I wander at dawn. 

Or rest 'neath the sycamore shade, 

My seat is a cushionless stone, 

My shelter the branches have made. 

I gaze at the sky overhead 
Amaze at the glitter afar, 

And shivering shrink from the cold 
That has polished the light of a star. 

A mystery coils at my feet, 

I spring at its touch and I thrill; 

Alas, in the murk of the dawn 
I know not a snake from a rill, 

Nor cloud from the mist. In a trance 
I plod on my perilous way, 

For the future untried and unknown 
Has married the night to the day. 



THE WHISTLER 

A snatch of music trilling fast, 
Then rising high, is flying past; 
I catch staccato note on note, 
From pipes of Pan they seem to float. 



106 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

My heart, alas, has throbbed with pain, 
But now with rapture bounds again. 
From other days have come — O joy! — 
The songs he whistled once — my boy ! 



BEAUTY 

Ambition took the marble block and said, 
"From this shall Beauty's face emerge." 

He chiseled on till day had fled 
And tragic Echo sang its dirge. 

Then Strength drove stalwart blows and fast 

Athwart the marble's vein; 
"Rare Beauty, come — divine at last — " 

But day had fled again. 

Pain dreary-eyed and pale and sore, 

The chisel stole and straight 
He wrought the battered marble o'er 

And Beauty came — too late. 



EXTREMES 

I seized my rough companion, Pain, 

And faced him straight: 

"O Pain, what is your name?" 

He answered, "Hate, 

Ambition, Grief, 

And Wear and Tear without relief — 

Hunger and Sickness, Age and Care." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 107 

" 'Tis false !" I said, "Love is your name, 
And Joy and Sympathy and Fame, 
And Ecstasy. Within your eyes 
Is magic rapture of the wise." 

"Ha, ha!" he sneered, "your head doth ache; 
Your heart is bursting, it will break. 
Your purse is empty, friends have fled, 
The joy you thought alive is dead." 

I smiled in scorn and answered, "No, 
The fairest gems are tears of woe. 
The pearl from sickness' breast is born, 
And roses blossom near the thorn. 
What happiness in ease is there, 
Unless 'tis wrenched from you, Despair? 
What dear delight in hearthstone warm, 
Unless from you it come, O Storm? 
What bard to youth hath ever sung, 
O Age ! like you that once were young, 
And where doth Love dare sullen Fate 
Save in your deadly shadow, Hate? 

"Scoff not! The secret lies in this, 
Thy names are wings that fly to bliss." 



THE EMERALD— IMMORTALITY 

A flake of yellow light, 

A bit of azure blue, 
Somewhere they met to blend, 

And then the Emerald grew. 



108 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

In emerald depths I gaze, 
Beholding two in one; 

The calm of cloudless skies, 
The passion of the sun. 



THE STARS 

Ye splendid constellations gemmed with suns, 
Fast-rushing over trackless wastes of blue, 
What star in distant ethers draws you on ? 

What awful magnet, in whose dazzling light 
The fires of Sirius pale, compels you 
Ever in terrific race to seek the goal? 

Hot-hearted stars, ecstatic in your passion's haste, 

In motion, motionless and calm, 

Where go ye ? Ah ! is Love awaiting there ? 



SUCCESS 

You say that I have failed; 

I ask you then, 

By what strange measure 

Do you gauge success? 

Is it by fame? Then I have lost. 

By happiness? I know it not. 

By love? The god is blind. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 109 

By wealth? My garments hang in rags. 

By valiant deeds? No sword have I. 

By prospects ? Death is on my track. 

Look you at me, distressed and sick, in poverty and old, 

And yet I dare to tell you, friend, 

Success is mine. 



LOUISE 

I loved thee when the sunshine fell 

Upon thy shining head; 
I love thee still, though moans the pine, 

And thou, they say, art dead. 

Sad tale of woe ! Sweet song of hope ! 

The pine tree moans and sighs, 
The shadow on the sunshine falls, 

But genius never dies. 

If thou art dead, thou still dost live, 

The heart can ne'er forget; 
Though flown, as flies the shivering bird, 

Thy soul is with me yet. 



FRAGMENT 

Hark! the breeze, 

Pregnant with song frenzy, 

Heavy with the scents of tropic seas. 



110 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Hark! O listen! 
Zephyr woos the yellow poppies, 
Kisses nodding buds to waking. 
Listen rapturously ! 

Hark ! the sighing of the pine ! 
The undying plaint of Time, 
Weighted to his shaggy locks with snow. 
Hark ! the song of woe ! 



EACH DAY 

The dawn grows pale 

And dies just after birth, 
But from its grave 

Upon the edge of earth 
Will rise again 

And gaze across the sea, 
As Cupid smiles 

And slyly passes me. 

The sun descends 

From heaven's azure arc, 
But from its tomb 

Of shadows and the dark 
Will flash once more 

Across the endless skies, 
As love returns 

And looks into mine eyes. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 111 



TO SARAH ELIZABETH LLOYD 

The bards were feasting once in Greece, 

The sun flashed fire on Attica, 

And sifted gold upon the board 

Weighed down with fruit from vine and tree. 

It was a day Olympian, rare, 

And you, I feel, were with us there. 

Ah, wine we drank to all the gods, 

And poured libations on the ground 

To Aphrodite and to Zeus. 

I see you faintly, yet afar, 

As if upon some other star, 

That muse-mad, dancing, happy throng, 

Alive with rapture and with song. 



Has Mitylene faded, gone? 

Or floats it in your realm of dreams? 

The vines that trailed upon the ground, 

The wine, the oil, the shifting gleams, 

The soft Levant, 

The breath of Asia, fancies' flights, 

The golden days, the silvery nights? 

Have you forgot the Sapphic lyre, 

Its tone, its ecstasy, its fire? 



112 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



DOOM 

Are we doomed as the sky is doomed, 
To the lightning and the thunder? 

Are we doomed as the beast is doomed, 
To save his life by plunder? 

Are we doomed to love and despair, 

To ecstasy, fierce or slow, 
To choke in heaven's air 

From the grip and clutch of woe? 

Fate ! Down, down, down on your knees ! 

Go smother your head in the wave! 
My doom is adrift on the seas 

And Liberty scorns her grave. 



NEAR ASIA 

Back to the heights, O Asia! 

Back to the rivers where Kailasa soars, 
The Satlej, Indus, Ganges, Tsangbo flow 

Down from the Lake of Brahm, whose water pours 
In mighty torrents to the sea below. 

Back to the source, O Golden East! 
The peaks of my soul's Himala 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 113 

Pierce heaven and melt in blue. 

The burning desert of my dreary pain 
Is merging into glittering crests anew 

That sought, long since, for paradise in vain. 



My clear, calm eyes look o'er the path I've trod, 
And o'er the rivers where my barque has sailed, 

The savage heights I've tried to climb to God, 
The valleys where I've dreamed and failed. 

I know the West-wind singing still of love, 
The distant plateau, poppy-tinted fields, 

The trees, the lakes, the nightingale, the dove, 
The passion, the despair that nature yields. 

At last, the love, the hate, the friend, the foe, 

The dear, sweet eyes that laughed and laughed in mine, 

The scowling brow, the desert sign, the woe 
Of my high destiny, the hair-breadth line 

'Twixt life and death I calmly scan, 

And poising now, myself I see the Man 

With bow stretched taut for Mastery. 

The puzzling questions of the years are not, 
The answer looms, my doubts forgot, 
As clear as sunlight after night has flown, 
When I was stumbling on by faith alone. 



114 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

O Asia ! The incense and the perfumes come, 

The far soft jangle of a thousand bells, 
The minaret, the dome, the hum 

Of life, the tale it tells 
Of jewelled glass and subtle eyes, 
Of mystic brothers ancient, wise. 
The pageant of the East I see; 
My Asia, take me back to thee ! 
Back to thy heart and mind and fate, 

The weary eagle seeks his nest; 
Tired on the wing, I cannot wait, 

O Asia, take me home to rest! 



POEMS OF PLACE 

MASSACHUSETTS 

Land of the bramble-bush and thorn, 

O hardy land where I was born ! 

The home of ice and sleet and fire, 

Of golden-rod and spruce and brier, 

Where sunbeams burn into the snow, 

And eastern winds on lilies blow, 

Where autumn leaves are dipped in dyes 

The frost has stolen from the skies, 

Where huddled hills hug close together 

The shivering woods in stormy weather, 

Where white-robed birches straight and clean 

Are temple-priests 'mid evergreen, 

Land of the clover-field and kine, 

From thee I came, and thou art mine ! 

From thee, where clouds sink low and glower 

In lightning-tragedy and power; 

Where sullen the Atlantic roars 

Along the edge of jagged shores, 

And dashes treasures high on strands 

That dare the wrath of alien lands! 

O Mother Mine! 

Wan genius nurses at thy breast, 

Thy bitter-sweet on fame shall rest, 

115 



116 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

The great that thou didst wake through pain, 

Upon thy heart shall sleep again. 

O Mother Mine, I've wandered far, 

And followed Fortune's luring star, 

Yet ever, ever, I remember 

Thy rosy June and grey December, 

Thy bramble bush and hidden thorn, 

Thou hardy land where I was born ! 



CALIFORNIA 

There are lands where the poppies are golden, 
Where the skies are a rapture in blue, 

Where the breezes on roses are stealing, 
But land of my love, what of you? 

There are lands where the birds warble ever, 
Where the air is a thrill in the sun, 

Where the singer and song sever never, 
And beauty and passion are one. 

There are lands where the pine and the palm-tree, 

The rose and the lily are fair, 
Where color is married to music, 

But magic — thy magic — O where? 

There are lands where the hills silver-crested 

Flash far on a foam-glitt'ring sea, 
Where Winter weds amorous Summer, 

But land of my love, what of thee? 



POEMS OF PLACE 117 

Thy heart like thy poppy is golden, 

Thy story is writ in a gleam, 
Thy magic like wine it is olden, 

And hid in the web of a dream. 

When the padre and poet had found thee, 

Thy bells with a prophecy tolled, 
For duty loved beauty, and round thee 

The fabric of romance was rolled. 

The vale with the snow peak above her 

Through ages in sunlight has lain, 
Here art fondles nature, a lover 

Forever in shine or in rain. 

There is fire where the poppy is dreaming, 

And romance in woman's large eyes, 
There is splendor where sunbeams are streaming 

From the far, lucid vault of thy skies. 

And the stars and the moon look in wonder 
On thy mountains and ocean and vale, 

From azures too tender for thunder, 
Too clear for the lightning or gale. 

There are lands drunk with summer and beauty, 

But none, magic country, like thee ! 
Where the palm and the pine — love and duty — 

Are friends from the hills to the sea. 



118 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



THE CLIFFS OF SAN JUAN 

Past the cliffs of San Juan enchanted I gaze 
Far over the waste till the soft lucent haze 
Of the air and the wave dim islands enshroud, 
And the wings of my fancy are lost in a cloud. 

The ocean majestic defying the sky, 
His green-dragon splendor unrivalled and high, 
His scales flashing flame, his voice a soft lull, 
Caresses Hawaii, his tropic sea-gull. 

And farther my sight pierces, certain and keen, 
Till the bridge of delight "Arkashima" is seen, 
And Hondo and Yezo appear like the morn 
With sunrise and softness and dew of the dawn. 

And Pacific Sargasso all flotsam and wreck 
Like a ravishing serpent entangles the deck, 
Of a derelict caught by the folds that entwine 
The sails and the hulks of the tramps of the brine. 

O the range of my eyes! no limits have they 
Astray with the muse on this vast water-way. 
Afar in the north, cut and ground, I behold 
The diamonds of ice that flashing and cold 
Mock curtly my sight with their glamour and spell, 
The flame of delight or the prescience of hell. 

Great sea of the Seven ! the awful, the blue, 
The mirror of heaven, away far from you, 
Must I draw my rapt fancy, and strive to forget 
The cliffs of San Juan that are haunting me yet. 



POEMS OF PLACE 119 



THE BLUE GROTTO 

A blue more subtle than the heaven's gleam, 
More azure than the open sea, 

No artist yet has dreamed thy dream, 
No Tyrian dye has rivaled thee. 

Nor easily is beauty bought, 

Nor cheap is magic fair as thine — 

The tints of paradise I've sought 
In thee are found, intense, divine. 



DOMREMY 

Oh, the gnarled, wizened shrubs of Domremy 

Are telling us yet of Joan, 
Her adorers as ardent and many 

As when she rode head of her clan. 

Not a bird but is valiantly singing 
Of her, the courageous, supreme; 

Not a bell in the vale but is ringing 
Its tale of the Maid and her dream. 

The trees where she talked with the Angels, 
The blossoms that spring from the sod, 

Are harking again for the voices, 
And waiting the mandate of God. 



120 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

And the storms are the crash and the thunder 
When she scaled the enemies' crag, 

While the foe, in despair, fled from under 
The lilies of France on her flag. 

Domremy remembers forever, 

Nor France, nor Orleans can forget, 

Champagne from Lorraine cannot sever; 
The flag of Joan flutters yet. 



O VALE YOSEMITE! 

Thy dome imperial, vanishing above, 
Thy pinnacles sharp shafts of flame, 
Forked lightning flung from thy sheer flanks, 
Belligerent scorn upon thy crest 
Speak thy Divinity. 

With tremolos the singing air 
Above, below and everywhere, 
Throbs tone on tone, a rhapsody. 
Thy spell, thy wizard chanting spell, 
Thy snare of light and shade, thy witchery 
On me shall brood and brood forevermore. 



POEMS OF PLACE 121 

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL! 

(At the Mosque of Sultan Hassan.) 

Dead beauty? Ah no, yet alive! 
Mid the ruin and wreck there survive 
The mimbar, the court and the span, 
The marvel and grace of the plan, 
The holy of holies, designs 
Lily-formed, the curves and the lines, 
The gigantic sweep of the arches, 
Maksoorah, where often there marches 
One faithful to prayer. 
Dead beauty ? Ah no, all the air 
Is alive with the thrill of the old, 
Exquisite, stupendous and bold. 

THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA 

Nor Sabine hills, nor Alban height — 

Sierra Madre is our own — 
Nor snare of Italy, but light 

Of flaming Southern skies alone 
Shall cast the spell, when one shall rear 
Minerva's matchless temple here. 



122 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



AT THE MOSQUE OF MOHAMMED ALI 

Its minarets that stab the blue, 

Like needles pierce the azure through; 

The sharp defiance that can dare 

To laugh at Khem in upper air 

But foils its citadel sublime, 

A challenge to the Nile and time. 

Within, desire that melts away 
Is caught in mesh of lantern's play, 
Or on the alabaster's gleam 
Is traced a Saracenic dream. 



THE DESERT LOTH— IRAN 

Desert Loth ! Like metal seething. 
I, alas ! thy hot air breathing, 
Fascinated still am gazing 
Where an angry sun is blazing. 

Dread remembrance! burning ever, 
Haunting vision ! fading never, 
Void of green or shadow, deadly, 
Hue of blood and gleaming redly, 
Break, O break this awful spell, 
Thou, O dearest Loth, art Hell! 

Nay, far out upon thy brink 
Uplands misty, purple, pink, 
Loom like wavering phantoms high — 
Iran's mountains touch the sky. 



POEMS OF PLACE 123 

O desert of my soul ! is there 
Some distant verge, where rosy, fair, 
The upland rises soft of view, 
And deadly wastes are lost in blue? 



THE PEARL OF THE ANTILLES 

'Twas long ago a tropic sky 
Came down to greet the sea, and I 
Saw floating on the shrouded deep 
A fog-draped island lost in sleep. 
Beneath the mystic, hazy dome 
I walked the ship's broad deck alone, 
And listened to the tragic sigh 
That stole in echoes faintly by. 

Off to a phantom shore the breeze 
Flew gently — Ah, 'twas long ago! — 
The mist-draped isle, the midnight seas, 
The echoes' sad refrain, the sky, 
The lonely deck, far space — and I ! 



A SIERRA MINSTER 

Those aisles among the trees of, pine, 
Those far dim aisles, I see them yet! 
The temple where long since I strayed 
Amid its columns hoary, great, 



124 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Upholding with their giant strength 

The Minster's mighty dome of blue. 

O mystic haunt of wandering shade! 

The sun has left his frescoed arch, 

And Time is sleeping on the wing. 

Orchestral music gently steals 

Upon mine ears from unseen harps, 

While rhythmic anthems rise and fall 

With sobbing, soughing winds. 

Ah! singing voices come from far 

And float along these dim, mysterious aisles, 

Like echoes from the ages gone. 

The place is haunted. Now a priest 

Peers round an altar draped with moss; 

Another strides with fine and lofty mien 

Along the vista of the nave. 

While suppliants kneel, 

Pale, pleading ghosts 

That shudder as they pray. 

Thou Minster, 'mid Sierra's snows — 

Thy lofty height, thy matchless dome, 

Thy long perspectives stretching on 

In shadowy, narrowing aisles, 

Thy mellow light and pregnant calm 

Set thee apart 

Unrivalled, mystical, alone! 



POEMS OF PLACE 125 



FROM LESBOS 

Sappho> 

At thy white feet to-day are lovers kneeling, 

As they in Mitylene knelt, 
To-day thine endless passion fiercely feeling, 

As they in Mitylene felt. 

'Twas Lesbos only that could bear thee, 

Alcaeus' mother and thine own. 
The Tenth Muse thou ! To whom compare thee ? 

The Nine have left thee here alone. 

Tear out the faded leaf of history, 
That tells of love's incarnate bliss, 

Enwrap the Parthenon in mystery, 
Forget the crowned Acropolis ! 

But thou! From Hellas' shores still ringing 

Comes music o'er the iEgean sea, 
A spirit to a star is singing, 

And raptured tells the world of thee. 

Speed on, fleet time ! Though pausing never, 

Eternity enfolds thee yet! 
To music wilt thou hurry ever, 

For Sappho thou canst not forget. 



126 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



ATTICA 

Blue Dome! that arches high o'er Attica — 

Blue Dome! I lift mine eyes 

Unto thy vastness — satisfied. 

Thy clouds, thy moon, thy stars ! 

Blue Dome, o'er Attica — blue Dome ! 

To my enchanted ears comes thundering 

An epic's grand refrain, 

While echoes on and ever 

The Greek's majestic strain. 

And to mine eyes a vision ! 

Athena, peerless, strong! 

Ionic temples, marble white, 

The Porticoes, the Painted Porch, 

The five-fold gates, 

The virgin goddess, ivory, gold 

With griffin and with sphinx, 

Medusa on her breast, 

A spear within her hand, 

The aegis at her feet, 

A slimy serpent, subtle, near. 

O'erwhelmed, I close my wondering eyes, 

But wake again at Memory's thrill. 

Behold Ceramicus ! sculptured, sublime, 

And high above Acropolis, the bronze Colossus deified. 

Minerva flashing helmet plumes, 

The Hill of Mars ! an owl, a tomb ! 

And while entranced I onward gaze 

Across this spectral, classic land, 



POEMS OF PLACE 127 

I hear the clash at Marathon, Salamis and Thermopylae, 
And shuddering, watch the ancient great 
That slowly, slowly, pass me by. 



IN THESSALY 

In Thessaly still are the bright-sandaled Muses 
Haunting the mountain, plucking the bay leaves, 
Weaving the garlands; 
But where is the singer, 
Where is the song? 

Soft comes the breeze from afar North, 
Wafting the breath of the roses, 
Floating by Pelion, Ossa caressing, 
Soft like a spell. 

Droop must the roses, 

The poet has flown; 
And the Muses despairing 

Wander alone. 



KAILASA 

Thou Terrible, the Mount Meru! 
A "lotus pistil" in the blue. 
The Hindu thy far crest adores 
That like a gleaming symbol soars, 



128 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Or humble in thy shadow lies, 

And trembling lies, or trembling dies. 

The lips of thy mysterious cave 

The Satlej and the Indus lave, 

While down thy massive deep-gorged flanks, 

Between their sinuous, fickle banks, 

A Ganges or a Tsangbo steals 

And daringly thy wealth reveals. 

Near by, where float through countless dawns 

A flock of spotless sacred swans, 

A jewel lake lies blue and calm, 

Created by the breath of Brahm. 

Kailasa, one, unsealed, sublime, 

Death-scorning, thou repellest time ! 

From thy scarped breast the sacred Four 

Rush on to unplumbed depths, and pour 

Into the vast, dread human sea 

The myriad treasures born of thee. 



ASPASIA— MELETUS 

She was Greek, and claiming this 

I'm singing you a song of Hellas' azure skies, 

And moons that gazed on sister moons 

In opal seas. 

She was Greek, and stately with long draperies, 
A noble breast, imperial brows, 
She swept Hellenic shores with splendid eyes, 
Where genius half-concealed and thinly veiled 



POEMS OF PLACE 129 

Stole glances at great Pericles. 
Ah, Pericles, thou wast undone ! 
Upon thy soul she softly fell 
As dew upon the branching oak. 

Did she conceal beneath her drooping sleeves 
With tender heart of Pericles 
The throbbing heart of Greece? 
Did she entangle in Hellenic hair 

The sunbeams of her native skies, 
And hide 'mid witching Grecian folds 

Sweet Loves with dangerous eyes? 

Fair Phantom of the Classic Past! 

Among the groves of Attica 

Dost thou, unseen and sad, 

Gaze wistfully on Hellas' ruined pile? 

Or are transcendent memories of ancient palmy days 

Still haunting thee 

As thou dost haunt the magic Helicon? 



THE TAJ MEHAL 

O Beauty! 
Soft sighs the wind within the echoing turrets of the 
Taj. 

What fair, unearthly, dim mirage 
On the horizon matches thee, 
Or what rare dream of ecstasy 
Is like thy moonlit magic, O Mehal! 



130 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Majestic, lone, 
Time brushes thee with feathery wing, 
While flying past the ages sing 
Of life, nor can the years forget, 
But chant of love eternal yet. 
The heart of Mogul merged itself in thee, 
Tribute divine to memory ! 
The Saracen yet calls unto his own, 
Where swells thy perfect, gleaming dome. 
The mind that glitters on and will not die 
Still dwells in marble under India's sky. 

In sadness oft I steal away to weep, 

When rises in my soul, though buried deep, 

A vision of this magic, peerless tomb, 

Where laughing gems defy the shadow's gloom; 

Where golden memories perfumed by the breeze 

Come floating in from somber cypress trees. 

A tomb to Love ! Transcendent irony ! 

As if a passion so divine could die! 

Beyond the Jumna rolls, 

To-day and yesterday a mystery, 

To-morrow still the same. While Fate stalks on 

Weighed down with written scrolls, 

Still unconcerned and young 

The Jumna rolls and rolls. 

Ah! I have prayed and yearned 
That life's deep river might flow on like thee 
From crystal source to sapphire sea, 
Young, changeless, unconcerned, 



POEMS OF PLACE 131 

Although a tomb should send its minarets 
Straight to the sky, or mighty parapets 
And mystic dome resound 
With phantom singing and the ghost of sound. 

Am I eternal? Am I wise? 

Then let the skull have gems for eyes ! 

Am I imperial — aye, a god? 

Then let the buried spurn the sod ! 

Fair Moomtaj, speak! Did Love depart? 

Illusion, is its name the heart? 

Or is the god where Jumna flows, 

Where still the breeze through cypress blows, 

Where flash the jewels, gleam on gleam, 

Of fair Mehal, the lover's dream? 



I HAVE BEEN UNDER IRISH SKIES 

I have been under Irish Skies 

When the slant rain fell on the sod, 

Like the silver threads of a wind-swept harp 
Strung loose by the hand of God. 

I have been under Irish Skies 
As clear as the Shannon stream, 

As blue as a colleen's eyes 

That flash like the water's gleam. 

O, the Irish Skies are grey or fair 

As the breeze-tossed Irish Sea! 
O, the Irish soul has cast its spell 

On the Irish land and me! 



132 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



AMONG THE AZORES 

Down came the sky everywhere 
To the rim of the ocean, and there 
Blinked Fayal, Moorish and old 
Like tapestry sprinkled with gold. 

And Pico bit into the cloud 

That wrapped him about in a shroud, 

A frenzy of shades faded dim, 

A fantasy tuned to a hymn. 



THE MEDITERRANEAN 

I shall never forget, but cherish, 
Though the stone-pines cease to be, 

Though the grapes of Ischia perish, 
And dry is the matchless sea. 

O, Khem, I shall ever feel you! 

Though the reeds and date-palm go, 
Though the Libyan Sands conceal you, 

And the Nile shall cease to flow. 

For my soul in giving holds you, 

As harmony clings to time, 
And memory's scroll enfolds you 

As melody wraps a rhyme. 



POEMS OF PLACE 133 



THE EUPHRATES 



The Vale of Arm drenched in light. 

Hugged close to milk and honey breasts, 

The huge, bold gem of Babylon, 

The sun sailed high Medusa-mad; 

It scorched the rocks and distant plains, 

And sent its tongues of flame 

To lick the luscious river dry. 

Along the banks seared mounds of earth 

Threw off malignant heat 

That burned the eyes of men, 

And made them dizzy, amorous, drunk 

With poisoned lust of life. 

Meandering here and there a lazy snake, 
Euphrates, sick, careened its neck, 
While spurting fire from jewelled scales 
That dared the jealous source of life, 
And flaunted sneers at burning hell. 
It clung to temples, columns, trees, 
Where Bel shot up from pyramidal base, 
And walls of chiselled brick 
Or gates of gleaming brass 
Defied the ramparts of the Syrian hills. 

From somewhere in the Taurus peaks it sprang, 

Its river-soul like winking dawn, 

As crystal-clear as morning air, 

Then down and down and down it came 



134 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

To Vale of Anu. Ah! 

Aflame with love of life, in splendid heat, 

On Mesopotamia's breast it flowed, 

And carnal things, the rank, the good, 

Leaped forth and closed it in, 

While man with eyes bequeathed by Eve, 

Adored the waters gushing rich 

With seeds and bloom and fruit. 

The Moon, alas ! when full of ravished light, 
Still longs and strives for more, 
And staggering as she climbs the sky, 
In greed of getting, giving all, 
Spills beams in careless waste 
On mountain, valley, sea. 
A concubine of artful fate, 
Yet roaming free with men and gods, 
And drinking glances from their eyes, 
The Woman-soul of Babylon, 
Once soaring mid the purple heights 
Like moons and moons went glamour-mad, 
And down to Vale of Anu came, 
And rich with getting, gave up all: 

Her soul, Euphrates' own; 

Her ears, Euphrates' shells that sang; 

Her hair, the plaything of Euphrates' breath; 

Her eyes, the mirrors of Euphrates' dreams. 

The hanging gardens, panting air, 

The darts and quivers of its heat, 

The shivering dawn, the clouds, the night, 



POEMS OF PLACE 135 

The ecstasies and pangs of birth, 
The rigors and extremes of death, 
Euphrates knew. And she? 
All Babylon was in her eyes, 
All evil and all good. 

A harlot of supreme unrest, 
A temple-virgin without stain, 
Prolific as the Tigris' banks, 
As barren as the desert sands, 
She fawned on earth with eyes afire 
Till Death was warmed to virile life 
And life lay swooning, trembling, dead. 
She was the pearl made flawless by the flaw, 
The ruby born of blood and pain, 
The sunset opal on horizon's rim, 
The diamond in the meteor's heart, 
Life's river on the desert's brim. 



A KISS 

In Ghilan and Mazandaran 

Caucasia's lips to Iran's cling; 

Afire with unspent melody 

The poet's soul must deathless sing. 



OLD CATHAY 



CHANG TZU 

O Chang Tzu ! remember the spice on the breeze, 

The sandalwood fragrance from over the seas, 

The ruler in yellowy Confucius, the seer, 

The passion of Hui Tzu, the glamour, the cheer 

When Hanchih was played in the wilds of Tung-ting 

The maddest of music on rhapsody's string. 

Remember the yin and remember the yang, 

The wind and the rain, the darkness, the light, 
Remember high Sung, remember great Tang, 

Mount Ming in the North, the distance, the night. 
O forget not the pipe, the reed and the flute, 
The singer that sang, the bard that was mute ! 
Forget not the cords that were knotted, and then 
Remember the women, remember the men. 

O Chang Tzu come back to your yellow Cathay ! 
Come back with your riddles and show us "the way" ! 
From the vastness of nowhere, O ,somewhere appear ! 
Come home to your people who wait for you here ! 



136 



OLD CATHAY 137 



'TWAS IN THE DAYS OF SANGHU 

'Twas in the days of Sanghu, 

Where keen Yin cuts the heights, 
Where the moon smiles o'er Liao, 

On the waning summer nights, 
Where the temple ceases climbing 

And yields its site to none, 
That you walked in magic sandals, 

And dreamed your dream alone. 

Softly backward go you floating, 

Like a sampan with the tide, 
To the music of the ages 

With the symphonies you glide 
Into visions clear, imperial, 

Mystic subtleties sublime, 
The Yin and Yang, the earth and sky, 

Eternity and time. 

Ah! has the dream come over 

From the mighty Kingan snows? 
Does it cling upon the aeons, 

A perfumed, deathless rose? 
And the sparkle of Liao ! 

Are the diamonds flashing still? 
And the gold and silver emblems 

In the temple on the hill? 



138 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

O look through glass of glamour 

To the summit and the moon, 
To the ancient and the holy 

Of the morning and the noon ! 
For Tao you are searching, 

Once known by young Hei Wy, 
The Tao of the streams and Ping, 

The Tao of the sky. 

Of the Great Bear and Kanpi 
That uplifted Kuen-Lun, 

The Tao of the streams and Ping, 
The Tao of the sun. 



Tzu Kung was softly singing 
And the Zytha with him rang; 

I hear the echo ringing, 
I hear the song he sang. 

"Ah! Wilt thou come back to us Sanghu?' 
"Ah! Wilt thou come back to us Sanghu?' 

And the mystic Zytha shivers 

Yet with tremolos of song, 
And the phantom Orient quivers 

With the life for which you long. 



OLD CATHAY 



AH KIM 



A white gull passes, like a love most fond, 
A fading sail skims on the ocean's rim, 
And solemn, calm as Buddha's image grim, 

Ah Kim is fixed on things beyond : 

The Flowery Kingdom, death and life, 

Tight-clenched in passion's gnawing feast, 

Creating pleasure, caution, strife, 
The soul, the jewel of the East. 

The spirit of the sword is there, 

The cry of torture, plague, despair, 

The clutch on earth, with sharp-nailed claws, 

That all her mountain flanks and flaws 

Which loom above this land of silk 

Yield from themselves a mother's milk. 

"Home, home to China!" where his own have died, 
And fluttering paper prayers are hung! 

Home, back to China where the temples bide, 
And trembling wind-blown bells are rung! 

Back to the Yangtse, Hoang-Ho, 

Back to Pekin, the yellow soil, 
Back to the wife and babies, lo! 

Back to the game, the luck, the spoil. 



140 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Back to the bones of honored sires 
That rattling in their boxes know 
His simple instincts and desires, 
Back to the chop-sticks, bowl of rice, 
Back to the cousins, back to life, 
"Back, back to China !" 

Land of extremes in bliss and sighs, 

Land of mysterious almond eyes, 

The mass a unit, tragic, grim, 

"Home, home to China !" prays Ah Kim. 

And still he gazes " 'cross the sea," 
On fertile field and magic stream, 
The sampan, hut, pagoda's gleam, 

And then, as patient as the beast 
That knows alone the mystic name, 

Evil as earth at heaven's feast, 

He goes about his menial "game." 

This Chinaman, "a mere machine," 
"Automaton," "who never basks 
In mediaeval dream." 

He garnishes and sweeps and brews, 
A slave to modern cult and plan, 

His face a mask, his smile a cheat, 
"For Cathay never breeds a man !" 

His heathenism just a joke, 
A superstition, paper prayer, 

His joss and devil but the yoke 
That keeps him steady everywhere. 



OLD CATHAY 141 



So carps the undiluted West, 

Complacent, understanding naught 

Save vetoes, negatives and words, 
Proof-positive or "ought." 

Meantime Kingan is soaring still, 
The Kiang flows, the flowers bloom, 

The dragon climbs the rugged hill, 
The great wall staggers to its doom. 

Along the bosses of the heights, 

The rice fields thrive in heaven's air, 

And 'neath the stars on winter nights 
Life grim, undaunted everywhere, 

Alert, and starving, out of breath 

Escapes, perchance, the fangs of death. 



THE LIGHT ON NAMSAN 

A beacon blazes on each Corean crest, 
Each hill in flame salutes the rest, 
From Namsan fiery signals fly 
Along the waste of sea and sky. 

From peak to peak, from height to height, 
Across the gloomy realms of night, 
The full, assuring news to tell 
In Corea's kingdom all is well. 



NIPPON 



THE SWORD OF OLD JAPAN 

Its sheen was more bewildering 

Than a rare Damascus blade; 
There was sunrise in its glitter, 

And a sunset in its shade. 
In the mirror of its surface 

Was the Inland Sea, a gleam, 
And the crest of Fujiyama, 

With a flash of ice, a dream. 

Chorus — 

O, the sword of Old Japan, 

Which was forged for the valiant clan 
That fought at Hinamoto 

For the feudal rights of man! 

Its lover hugged his trusty sword 

As though it were his bride; 
In the making of his weapon 

A man, perhaps, had died. 
So keen its edge it vanished, 

'Twas a danger out of sight, 
A blend of earth and sun and air, 

Of morning, noon and night. 

142 



NIPPON 143 

And it lunged and glanced and glittered, 

A peacock frenzy when 
Its deadly shift of color 

Defied the foe, and then 
With a lightning flash and fury 

It rained a crimson shower 
From hilt to point, avenger, 

Compelling in its power. 

Chorus — 

O, the sword of Old Japan, 

Which was forged for the valiant clan 
That fought at Hinamoto 

For the feudal rights of man ! 

It was sacred, for the people 

In the sword had put their trust, 
'Nor on its purple gleaming 

Was a hint of cloud or rust. 
From the sheath it came and flying 

Of Death a playmate made, 
For the living were the dying 

With the flashing of the blade. 

But like magic it has vanished; 

On a well-remembered day 
To the scabbard it was banished, 

And the sword was laid away. 
Yet keen its edge as ever 

When fought the valiant clan! 
Its ancient blade is potent yet, 

The sword of Old Japan. 



144 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Chorus — 

O, the sword of Old Japan, 

Which was forged for the valiant clan 
That fought at Hinamoto 

For the feudal rights of man ! 



NIPPON'S "GO-DOWN" 

Her blade with its fire and its edge and its sheen, 
Her sword that has rivaled the famed Damascene 

Is laid in the scabbard, they say. 
Her battleship Fugi may shiver and growl, 
Her cruiser Asama may tremble and howl, 
But the demon, the devil that rivaled the fan, 
The subtle, the flashing, quick sword of Japan 

Is laid in the "Go-down" away. 

Her gunboat Akagi may blaze on the foe, 
Defiant of Russia, of death or of woe, 

But look, surly Bear, 

For a gleam in the air 
That might be a sunbeam, or might be a blade, 
A moonbeam gone rampant, a sword in the shade, 

An icicle fallen from Fuji's white crown! 
Have a care, have a care, 
Lest the scabbard, old Bear, 

Lie empty in Nippon's "Go-down" ! 

There are fighters and fighters and fighters ashore, 
On mines of torpedoes are fighters still more; 



NIPPON 145 

There's the bomb and the bullet, the rifle and gun, 
The battle well lost, the battle well won, — 

Have a care, have a care ! 

For the edge in the air, 
The demon, the devil that rivaled the fan, 
The subtle, the tragic, quick sword of Japan. 



AKAGI 

Shot in the back ! Ah, what a destiny ! 

Killed at his post, as fits a man! 
And this, the hero's tragic victory, 

Who saved the honor of Japan. 

From far, the mainmast of Akagi, 
Rang out his voice above the wave, 

Defiant, lone, erect in majesty 

He challenged death, for he was brave. 

No more cared he for years of living; 

A fame immortal he has won, 
His land to him her heart is giving, 

On his escutcheon shines the sun. 

The rising sun! A cloudless morning! 

Aye, nail the gleaming banner fast! 
Flag of Japan, the East adorning, 

Float on above Akagi's mast! 



146 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



O THE SAKI OF KIOTO! 

Far in the West is Fujiyama, 
Great phantasmal "Ar Kishima" ! 
Waves of blue are thundering on 
"The Bridge of Heaven" — Fair Nippon. 

Where the cherry-blossoms tremble 
And their petals fly like snow, 

'Mid the temples of Kioto, 

Where the royal plum-trees grow, 

Sits the smiling, patient Buddha, 

On Nirvana pondering long, 
While the rhythmic river sighing 

Flows to melody and song. 

O the saki of Kioto 

Where the priest and scholar tread ! 
O the wine of Hinamoto! 

O the living and the dead! 



RENDERINGS FROM THE JAPANESE 

SUMA BEACH, JAPAN 

(From Kinza Hirai) 

O where did Tara's army drown? 

Far north the Rocko's towering peak 
Frowns grimly on the Inland Sea. 

Like distant echo comes the shriek 
Of steamer whistle, frantic, free, 

Where rushes swiftly the black breath 
Of dusky smoke, as if to flee 

From melancholy fate of death. 

O where did Tara's army drown? 
The restless, sighing breakers 
With their tragic undertone 
Unfold no tale, but rend my heart 
As listening here I brood alone. 

OTOWA FALLS, JAPAN 

(From Kinza Hirai) 

Among the clouds the temple roof 
And massive terrace seem to float, 

147 



148 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

While darkly-robed the priest-like pines 
With effort climb the steep hillside 
To pause before the sacred door, 
And chant in melancholy tones, 
A hymn to Daishi, the divine. 

Three waterfalls, like silver threads, 
Leap from Otowa's rugged loin 
And fill the air with cooling sound 
That mingles tenderly its tones 
With the Cicada's winged notes, 
And fills the sacred, calm retreat 
With purest melody. 



ON THE GENKAI SEA 

(From Kinza Hirai) 

The singing wind hums round the straining sail 
While moonlight glitters on the rail 
And flashes from an angry sea 
That tosses up its spray at me. 

A monster wave, a slimy whale, 
Spouts filmy froth into the gale, 
Or like a dragon turns and coils 
To clutch the ship within its toils. 

The Genkai sea is lost in night, 
And timid souls are faint with fright. 
Above, the yawning, eager wave, 
Is open like a hungry grave. 



RENDERINGS FROM THE JAPANESE 149 



THE NIGHTINGALE 

The spring has come: 

Does the nightingale fancy the snow is the flower, 
When she warbles sweet notes on the snow-sprinkled 
bower? 

(Sosei Heshi) 



The nightingale has failed to sing; 
Whate'er men say, it is not Spring. 

(Mibu no Tadamine) 



(At the Poetry Match in the Empress' Palace in the 
period of Kwampei) 

By the wind the bloom's fragrance 

I send far and wide, 
For enticing 'twill serve 

As the nightingale's guide. 

(Ki no Tomonori) 



The valley breezes cleave the ice, 
And out from crevice here and there, 
The flower-hued ripples quickly rise, 
Like Spring's first blossoms everywhere. 

(Minamoto no Masazumi) 



150 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



A LOVE POEM 

Inconstant seems the cherry-bloom, 

Yet lovely petal scatters not, 
It waits for one who for a year 

To gaze on it has quite forgot. 

Reply 

Inconstant to the flower, you say, 
To-day I timely come, nor wait. 

To-morrow like the snow 'twill fall, 

And though not dead 'twere loved too late. 
(Nauhira no Asomi) 



When cherry-blossoms fluttering fly 
Like ebbing tides in limpid air, 

Then roll the white waves in the sky 
Although the water is not there. 



THE CHERRY 

To pluck the charming cherry-bloom, 
Makes sad my tender heart; 

Come let me lodge beside the tree 
Until its splendor shall depart. 



Who knows where dwells the cruel wind, 
That on the cherry-blossoms blow? 

Who knows, I ask, show me the way, 
And there to tell my woes I'll go. 



RENDERINGS FROM THE JAPANESE 151 

(Address to flower newly opened on a cherry-tree) 

Young cherry-flower, one Spring alone 
Canst thou this whole year know; 

Avoid the fate of kindred blooms 

That from thy tree shall sometime blow. 

(Tsuiayumi) 



THE PLUM 

More winning than its hue, 

The perfume of the flower. 
Whose sleeve, I wonder, softly touched 

The plum-tree of my bower? 

(Unknown) 



Near home no plum-tree will I plant, 
Lest I its fragrance should mistake 
For that of one for whom I wait. 

(Unknown) 



O where is the bloom of the plum? 

All things on the earth are white, 
To follow its scent is my only guide 

On a gleaming, moonlight night. 



152 DREAMS OF HELLAS 



PALACE OF PRINCE ROYAL 

Thou wind of Spring, 
Blow not upon the flowers, 
If petals scatter willingly, 
Without the aid of thee. 

(Fugiwara no Toshikaza) 



GAZING UPON THE CAPITAL 

The willows interlace and twine, 

The Capital is overlaid 
With interweaving cherry-blooms, 

The Miya Ko is Spring's brocade. 



(The willow-tree near Saidaiji, a temple) 

Spring's willow! 

From its boughs the light green twisted threads are 
hung; 
Like beads the snowy drops of dew 
Are close together lightly strung. 

(Sojo Haijo) 



To what can the world be compared? 

The deep abyss of yesterday is the shoal of to-day. 



RUSSIA 



TO LERMOINTOV 

Thou bard of Caucasus, 
Whose melancholy eyes 
Once swept the Russian plains, 
To thee I bring from distant clime 
An offering. 

They said that thou wast dead; 
Love knelt to thee and bade thee speak; 
Thy lips, thy youthful lips were dumb. 
Hark, hark! is that thy golden voice 
Still ringing mid the giant pines? 
Does yon lone bird sing thy weird song? 
And are those thundering tones 
Which echo from the hills thine own? 

Love bade thee open thy young eyes, 
Those stars that saw the face of God; 
Thy pallid lids were still — 
Nay! nay! dost thou behold again 
The light that blazes far for thee 
On land and sea? 

* * * 
153 



154 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Where Kasbek glitters, and the Dnieper flows, 
Where Terek flashes 'midst eternal snows, 
Across the Steppes, or in the forest depths, 
Where rises high the spire and dome 

Of Caucasus, 
As once before, we crown thee now, 
Here, here, in Muscovy art thou ! 



TO MY RUSSIAN FRIEND P. A. DEMENS 

We've dreamed on the heights together, 

We've scanned the Russian plain, 
We've listened in sunny weather, 

And faced the gale and rain. 

For the bard of bards was singing 

The famous minstrel song, 
Tzar Terrible was bringing 

His mighty hosts along. 

And Orsha wildly shouted, 

Arsense with lightning played; 
Injustice he had flouted, 

His heart was with the maid. 

The Demon too was calling 

Where Terek leaped and roared, 
And we saw the flash of Kasbek, 

As the bird of the mountain soared. 



RUSSIA 155 

Or young Tamara dancing 

Where beauty was like fire, 
And sunbeams hotly glancing 

Were symbols of desire. 

We've pierced the fog together 

On the Dnieper, cold and drear, 
We've seen the trees that bowed like ghosts 

And the wild beast shrunk with fear. 

We've gazed on the vale of Groosia 

Where song birds love and sing, 
And the shades of green-decked Chinar 

Enhance the bliss of Spring. 

On Moscow in the sunrise 

And on the Kremlin white 
We saw the shifting clouds in skies 

That played with day and night. 

Ah yes ! the poet with us, 

We've gone to the Steppes afar, 
From North to Caspian's border 

Under the Russian star. 

From you I've ravished splendor 

Of the old-time court and king, 
From you the beauty tender 

Of the Groosian vale in Spring. 



RENDERINGS FROM THE RUSSIAN 
OF LERMONTOV 

OATH OF THE DEMON 

(Rendered into English by Annie E. Cheney and P. A. 
Demens) 

I swear by creation's first day, 

I swear by its last day, 
I swear by disgrace of crime, 

By the triumphs of truth ! 
I swear by the bitter torture of my fall, 

By my short hope of victory. 
I swear by my meeting with thee, 

And by the coming parting; 
I swear by the hosts of spirits, 

My subordinates by fate, 
By the words of the passionless angels, 

My watchful foes; 
I swear by Hell and by Heaven, 

By all that is sacred on Earth, 
And by thee! 

I swear by thy last look, 
By thy first tear, 

By the breath of thy life, 
By waves of thy silken curls, 

156 



RENDERINGS FROM THE RUSSIAN 157 

I swear by bliss and by sorrow, 
I swear by my love: 

Thou art my religion, 
Thou art my God. 

My might I cast at thy feet. 
I wait for thy heart as a gift, 

And O, for one moment of bliss 
Take thou Eternity! 

Forget thy past desires, 

Leave this revolting spot. 
Instead of it, I'll freely give 

Proud Wisdom's fruits. 
Aye, from the Eastern Star for thee 

I'll tear her golden crown. 
I'll take the midnight dew from flowers 

And deck thy coronet. 
I'll bring a ribbon of the dawn 

To twine about thy form. 
With pure aroma will I fill 

The lucid balmy air. 

I'll ravish thy young ears 

With melody divine; 
With amber and with turquoise gems 

I'll build a home for thee. 
I'll plunge into the ocean's depths, 

I'll fly beyond the clouds, 
I'll give thee all the earth — 

Love met! 



158 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

EXTRACT FROM THE POEM OF LERMONTOV 

WRITTEN IN 1837 ON THE DEATH OF 

PUSHKIN 

Gone the Poet! He, proud honor's slave, 

By slander crushed, is dead 
With lead and vengeance in his breast. A grave 

Entombs his haughty head. 

The petty stings of trifles never 

Could his great soul retain; 
Against the world, alone as ever, 

He rose; and he was slain. 

No more will music follow him, 

Nor will he sing his song again, 
The Poet's house is narrow, grim; 

A seal is on his lips and pen. 



THE GIFTS OF TEREK 

(A Free Rendering from Lermontov) 

Terek, wild and angry, midst the great rocks roars, 

And like a storm is moaning, sighing, 

While in foam his tears are flying, 

Nearing the green valley spying 
Caspian's shores. 



RENDERINGS FROM THE RUSSIAN 159 

He calm becomes, and close beside the sea 

He whispers, gently smiling, smiling: 

"Make a place for me," — thus whiling 

With tender soft beguiling, — 
"Make a place for me." 

"Tired of freedom, I desire sweet rest to take. 

I was born where Kasbek wonders, 

Nursed upon a breast that thunders; 

With the power of man who blunders 
Bitter war I make, 

"For Daryal ruined I, thy children to delight, 

Their greed to gratify. 

A mass of stones that lie 

Where valley grasses die, 
I brought with all my might." 

The blue sea dreams as if asleep beside the shore, 
Voluptuous banks his form encasing, 
Their tender arms with love embracing, 
While Terek now is boldly facing 

Old Caspian to implore. 

And whispering low: "A treasure I have brought to thee; 

No common gift is this I hold. 

From where the clouds of battle rolled 

I bring a warrior true and bold, 
A brave Circassian he! 



160 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"His brow is knit, a trace of blood has left its track; 

His look is fearless as the day 

With hatred that will not away, 

His forelock recklessly doth stray 
Across his back. 

"Beyond a price the cuirass on his breast, 

With plates of steel where lies enrolled 

A holy verse inscribed in gold, 

A motto from the Koran old 
Is there to rest." 

But lying low by curving shores dumb Caspian slept, 

And trembling Terek spoke once more: 

"O, listen, listen I implore ! 

For surely now must thou adore 
The gift I've kept. 

"All else is naught, the world alone could this avail, 

I'll bring thee with my rushing waves, 

The boon thy longing spirit craves, 

A Cossack girl. The water laves 
Her shoulders pale. 

"Her dreamy face is sorrowful, but free from care; 

In sleep her aspect is most sweet. 

A wound bleeds where her heart once beat, 

The blood is streaming to her feet, 
Her locks are fair. 



RENDERINGS FROM THE RUSSIAN 161 

"One only feels no sorrow for the maiden dead, 

A noble Cossack, proud and brave, 

Who caring not his life to save 

Will seek a melancholy grave 
And lose his head. 

"He saddled his black horse, and in a midnight fray 

Must be by fatal dagger killed; 

By vile Circassian will be spilled 

The blood he ruthlessly has willed 
To flow away." 

The river ceases talk so querulous and grim, 

For white above him as the snow 

A head, where dripping tresses show 

And tremble on the waves that flow, 
Looks down at him. 

A glittering king, the sea in majesty of strength arose 
As mighty as a thunder storm, 
His dark blue eyes with passion warm, 
While vanished from his slippery form 

Was sweet repose. 

He trembled with expectancy, he thrilled with passion's 

joy. 

Then clasped in his embracing arms 
The Cossack girl with all her charms 
And murmured love that conquers, calms 
Without alloy. 



162 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

THE ROCK 

(Rendering from the Russian of Lermontov) 

There softly stole upon the breast 
Of lonely rock, gigantic, grim, 

A golden cloud to sleep and rest, 
And dream and dream again of him. 

It sweetly slept the whole night through, 
But in the early hour of dawn 

Whence it had come into the blue 
It gaily went on wings of morn. 

Imbued with thought, upon its brow 
The rock retains a moistened trace. 

Alone as once before, but now 

The tears are trickling down his face. 



THE VALLEY OF GROOSIA 

(Rendering from The Demon) 

Beneath him came floating a vale, 

Fair Groosia ! a picture new-spread 

With a carpet of green, 

A region of columned ruins 

Where murmuring streams ever glide 

Over beds of translucent stones, 

Rose-vines where the nightingales sing 



RENDERINGS FROM THE RUSSIAN 163 

To women their song 

Unravished by sound of their love, 

The chinar's deep shadows crowned by thick ivy, 

The cavern where hides through the heat of the day 

The graceful gazelle, 

The light and the life, the murmur of leaves, 

The hundred-voiced throng, all alive, 

The breathing of numberless plants, 

The sensual heat of the noon, 

The ever-full nights with aroma of dews, 

And the bright magic stars, 

Like a Groosian girl's eyes. 



ON THE DNIEPER— WINTER 

(Rendering from Lermontov) 

'Tis winter, from a ghastly depth 

Appear the sable trunks of trees 

That to the freezing Dnieper bow like ghosts. 

Day dim and wan is gazing in a glass of ice, 

And all the rifts are full of snow. 

A rabbit finds his hole at dawn.. 

And springing back and forth leaves many tracks. 

Ofttimes at night the house-dog barks and growls 

When steals a thin and hungry wolf too near, 

Or 'cross the quiet fields 

His trampling steps and gnashing teeth are heard. 

And in the dark amid the bush, by hundreds 

Glittering eyes like candles flash. 



164 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

ON THE DNIEPER— DAWiN 

(Rendering from Nobleman Orsha) 

"Tis early morn and peaceful are the fields, 
Thick fog, a fleecy arras silver-trimmed 
Above the Dnieper hangs, 
And through its mists upon the rugged bank 
The trees gaze on themselves within the waves. 
Beyond the forest sails a group of clouds, 
And far, like fire, appears the ruddy dawn. 



THE GATES OF THE CAUCASUS 

(Rendering from The Demon) 

And the exile from Paradise over the Caucasus flew, 

Under him Kasbek flashed white with eternal snow, 

Cut like a diamond's edge, 

And like an abyss deep and black, 

The reptiles' cavernous home, 

Gleamed the meandering Daryal. 

Like a lion Terek leaped, 

His thick-massed mane on his back, 

And plunging and bounding roared, 

While the mountain, beast, and the bird, 

Up, up in the azure heights, 

His voice, like the thunder, heard. 

And violet clouds from the South 

Follow him far to the North, * '•■*-' : * 



RENDERINGS FROM THE RUSSIAN 165 

As the peaks embracing him, 
Full of mysterious dreams, 
Bend low their sleepy heads 
To watch his glittering waves, 
Their lofty, haggard brows 
Piercing the tattered fog, 
Gigantic sentinels grim, 
The Gates of the Caucasus. 



EGYPT 

N THE NILE 

Once in Memory's misty realm 

I saw the tawny Nile 

And that far azure line that cuts the desert's brink, 

Whence crept the Libyan sands 

Close to the river's edge 

To drink and drink and drink, 

And clothe themselves in green. 

And I ? Alas for memory ! 

Listening I heard a plaintive chant, 
As though the river sang: 
"Hail to thee, Osiris, 
Hail to thee, Osiris, 
Each day is Ammon with thee. 
Hail to thee, Osiris! 
Thou seest with thine eyes ; 
Thou hearest with thine ears; 
Thy soul is made divine in heaven; 
Thyself thou canst transform; 
Joy of the Persea-tree in On, 

Hail to thee, Osiris !" * 

* At the burial of the dead, the departed soul if justified by 
Osiris, was always addressed as Osiris, probably because it was 
believed that he had become a creative unit of energy, or the 
ultimate power and had conquered in death the malignant principle, 
or the opposite of Osiris, called by the Egyptians Set or Typhon* 
This chant in the poem, "Hail to thee, Osiris," is taken from one- 
of the sacred books of Egypt. 

166 



EGYPT 167 



And calmly looking down 
I saw a dead man's face. 
"Hail! hail!" I also sang, 
"Hail to thee, Osiris!" 

How like a snake the river moved, 
How like a serpent I ! 
How musical and lithe the reeds, 
How gaunt the sycamores; — 
"Hail to thee, Osiris !" 

O man! Osiris dead! 

And I alive, 

Aflame with motion, 

Clear of eye, a thing of power, 

While close art thou to earth, 

Inert, cold, rigid, 

Sunken down before thy grave is dug, 

Sucked toward thy mother's heart. 

How scornfully I spurn the sod, 
How airy, how far off, how high 
My fancy roves ! 

My eyes see heaven where stars are sown, 
My ears discern soft, soughing sounds 
Which float in breezes off the Nile. 
But thou? Thine eyes are set, 
Thine ears are stopped. 
"Hail to thee, Osiris !" 

Here Libya lies in never ceasing trance; 
Bedecked with countless gems 



168 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

It stretches outward toward the sky 

A swooning ecstasy that cannot die; 

But thrilled with rhythmic, surging life, 

The epic-singing Nile rolls on, 

Though ruins hug its curving banks, 

And Age rots slowly in its tombs, 

Though Karnak casts a mummied spell 

Across the hoary land of Khem, 

And Thebes lies drugged beneath the sky. 

What, what, alluring Nile, 

tell me ! what is death ? 
Then to my soul the river sang: 
"The bittern booms 

Amid the tombs, 

The raven cries 

When mortal dies, 

But cheated of his prey 

Great Typhon sighs and sighs. 

Earth unto earth — 

Behold Osiris rise!" 

"Hail to thee, Osiris! 
Escaped hast thou thy prison; 
The soul of man hath risen. 
Hail to thee, Osiris!" 

1 said, "Thou sinuous, subtle stream 
Alive amid the dead, 

O Nile, the mystic's dream, 
Where hath Osiris fled?" 



EGYPT 169 



And as I spake I gazed again 
Upon the dead man's face,, 
While sang once more 
The flowing Nile: 
"Hail to thee, Osiris, 
Joy to the Persea-tree in On, 
The immortal soul is God and One, 
Hail! Hail to thee, Osiris!" 



A TALE OF KHEM 

As India produced a Gautama, and Syria a Jesus, it 
would seem that Egypt must have flowered in another 
than the imagined Hermes Trismegistus. The history 
of Egypt dates only from its decline, and yet it brought 
over with it from a palmy age a tenet of immortality, 
implying a teacher and a school of thought unwritten in 
hieroglyphics. 

Egypt, mysterious, 
Embalmed, and yet with eyes 
That from their sockets gaze 
As if a deathless soul were dwelling there, 
O tell me ! art thou dead ? 

Do I forget thee, Nile, 

Where dreams are lost in dreams, 

And moons have drowned themselves in thee, 

Where suns with passion kiss thy breast, 

And stars smile down at stars — do I forget? 

Some mystic impulse felt by thee 
Impelled me far where records fail, 
Ere Memnon's statue spoke at Thebes 
Or Isis wore the mocking veil. 

170 



EGYPT 171 

I stood beside the pyramid, 
And where the tombs of Gizeh rise 
I conjured time whose tragic eyes 
Gazed into mine. 

Erect and coming nearer, near, 

Majestic, human, cameo-clear 

I saw the ancient Khem of Khem, 

And then to me, as flowers unfold, 

The tale of Egypt there was told. 

His voice like echoes sighed and sung; 

His words were pearls as yet unstrung; 

A shade, a man, he showed in part 

The secret splendors of his heart. 

"As Buddha came the truth to teach," he said, 

"As Jesus rose celestial from the dead, 

As Mecca held Mohammed's shrine, 

So here to weave his spell divine 

The son of Khem once wandering, lone, 

Through teaching made this land his own." 

And then the unwrit past, nor scrip nor scroll, 

Was etched and stabbed into my soul: 

"I lived beside a stream 

Where sycamores and palms 

Threw shadows over rustling reeds 

That 'mid its ripples bathed their lives away. 

Along the river bank strange birds 

Stalked 'mid the waving grass 

In that lone time when lotus throve 

And Isis sat apart and nursed her child. 



172 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

I was a poet and I wandered there 
Deep breathing the enchanted air, 
While gazing with young, ardent eyes 
On cloudless, vast, mysterious skies, 
Though far extended, ne'er begun, 
An opal setting for the dazzling sun. 

"With lotus blooms I wooed the moon, 

I whispered with the Cyprus leaves, 

And kissed the hand of Isis 

As she hurried by. 

Dim nights ! Fair nights ! 

Come back and bring again 

Your virgin spell, 

When all was passion, passionless, 

And in my heart the germ of love slept on. 

And as I dreamed, upon mine ears there fell 

The music of the spaces far, 

Faint whisperings passed from star to star, 

And sound of trembling ethers 

Where the mystics are. 

Yet this was but the flow of life; 

The ebb, alas, was near! 

Egyptian nights, 

When from the haunts of Horror 

Crept Despair and Fear. 

"And on my heart — upon my startled heart 
There fell the woe of Earth, 
The pain of mothers at their infants' birth, 
Their sorrow when they die, 



EGYPT 173 

The eyes of frightened children peering out 

'Neath dripping lashes at the world, 

The puzzled mind of youth, 

Strong men who wrestled restlessly, 

Sweet tenderness rebuffed, 

And kisses met with blows. 

And then I wrenched the stern- j awed tomb apart 

And prayed the gods to strike me dead. 

Dost thou know love and passion, 

Mighty as a torrent by the sun excited, 

By the moon impelled? 

Knowest thou its mystery, its terror, 

And its rapture? 

"When the night of Egypt 

Kissed the lips of morning, 

When the Nile rolled inland, 

When the embers smouldering in the ashes 

Burst to flame, 

I looked into the glorious eyes of Isis, 

Caught the frenzy of Osiris, 

Felt the warm desire of heaven, 

Trembled with the quivering earth. 

Then, then, I loved. 

"Alas, a god goes straying forth 

To woo a mortal woman; 

He seeks a star amid the blue, 

The land beside the sea, 

A tree upon the sands. 

And so he lights as daintily 



174 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

As does a feather 
By the river, 'mid green grasses, 
Coaxes woman's eyes to waking, 
Kisses woman's lips to singing, 
This and more, when a god 
Comes straying over earth. 
When man ascends to distant heaven, 
Begging love of an Immortal, 
Scaling heights in golden sandals, 
Winging flights with flaming pinions, 
He storms the very gates of Bliss, 
To wed the sacred muse in her." 

And then in rhapsody the Ancient sang : 
"O Love, I see thee yet, and ever shall, 
When singing blends with singing, 
'Mid the sycamores and palms, 
When music floats to music, 
In the ripples of the Nile ! 

Love, I see thee yet 

When rise the mists of morning 
From lilies on the stream, 
When fall the dews of evening 
On the sorrow-stricken reeds ! 

1 remember all the glory of thy hair; 

Like shadows on the sunlight, night on the noon, 

Was the glory of thy hair. 

I remember all the glamour of thine eyes, 

All the splendor of their blackness, 

All the magic of their flashing into mine, 

Even yet, though the ages 



EGYPT 175 

Are sepulchred or buried, though temples have 

arisen 
On the ruined site of tombs, 
Even yet they flash into mine. 

"Something misty and uncertain, 

Revealing, unrevealed, 

Ever blending, ever ending 

Was our love. 

She retreated to advance, 

Averted, yet her glance met my own, 

I felt her arms about me, 

Though she lived amid the stars, 

I knew her burning kisses, 

Though I dwelt all alone." 

The Ancient paused with head bent low, 

Then suddenly addressed the night long gone, 

Which once had been so bitter 

And again so sweet; 

Invoked it as he oft had done 

In other days: 

"Come ye Shades that walk abroad at night ! 

The sun went down long hours ago, 

My heart was hot from basking in the light. 

I wait — O come ! 
Sweet Love, arise and gaze with me into the moon ! 
Sweet Love, art thou still weaving dreams? 

Come, O thou dearest, 

Who left me when the sunlight shone! 

Come, O thou nearest! 
For I am sad, alone. 



176 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Roll back thy curtain, awful Night! 
Unveil still other stars! 
Then 'mid thy splendors may I roam, 
And hear the voice of Earth 
Whose breath comes fast. 
Ah, passion sweet! 

The shade of Love has wandered near 
And our lips meet. 

"Dim Night, indefinite, uncertain Night, 
Stay but the coming of the day one hour ! 
Veil it with clouds, black like thyself, 
Enshroud the Dawn in mourning for the dead, 
Keep back the sun, and bid the moon 
To gleam still longer in the arch o'erhead 
That I may know the secret of thy heart. 
O stay the onward march of the approaching day 
Till she, my Love, doth come !" 

Then turned great Khem 

And looked into mine eyes and spake again: 

"Ah ! once hi that remembered time 

My life was ecstasy, 

But ere she sought the river bank and died 

She bore a child, and prophesied: 

'A paradox, his hour is near; 

Thy son shall be the uncrowned seer.' " 

Osiris shudders; Isis trembles. 
Where, O where 'mid wilds of Egypt 
Strayed the Teacher, sang the Singer? 



EGYPT 177 

The Nile rolls on and tells no tale, 

The desert bears a sphinx upon its breast, 

And skies above are blank and dumb. 

Then towering in full majesty, 
This lofty phantom 
Formed from mist impalpable, 
The ancient Khem, 
Addressed the Libyan Sphinx: 

"Shall man succumb to thy weird eyes? 

Humanity, triumphant, knows no sphinx 

Save unsolved Law. 

Behold a paradox: The Mystic ignores mystery. 

Before thy symbol rose on Libyan sands, 

Ere Hellas caught the meaning of thy spell, 

Another Edipus had dared thy glance, 

Supreme, magnificent above thy head, 

No rival hath he 'neath the sun and moon." 

I watched this mighty Shade, as thus he stood 

Against the background of the blue, 

Where Libya spread far out to meet the sky. 

"O thou," I said, "who conquerest rhythm itself and 

time, 
Interpret to my wondering mind thy speech." 

"Learn lessons from revolving stars," he sighed, 

"From waves along the ocean strand, 

From shifting seasons in their flight, 

From fire in wake of ice, and ice in trail of fire." 

And then a smile like sunlight 

Flashed athwart his face. 



178 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Unless with Amnion thou art wed, death conquer- 

eth thee. 
If it thou knowest, 
Time will speed thee by 
Like flock of birds across the blue, 
And leave no mark upon the sky. 
Our gods seem many„ but are One, 
Creation uncreated, proof unproved, 
Sin sinless, this knows he 
Who learns the truth of Khem." 

"But tell me of the Flower, thy son," said I, 
"How lived he? Was he doomed to die?" 

"On others' wings thou canst not rise, 

By others' lives thou livest not, 

The iNameless did himself disguise, 

Lest in the Singer were the song forgot. 

In tremolos the dewdrop falls on lotus leaves, 

So falls his love upon the heart that grieves. 

"O eyes, that wandered restfully 

From star to star, 

Deep eyes, sunlit and calm; 

How soft their look when they on Egypt gazed! 

"Mysterious, restless Nile, flow on, 
And murmuring, breathe of Him. 
Where rushes grow and reeds are wet, 
His echoing words are whispered yet. 



EGYPT 179 

"I remember that fair heaven whence he came, 
A world of hallowed rapture, and its name 
Lingers still half-forgotten like the gleam 
Of moon-enchanted lilies on the stream. 

"In His heart he carried with him all the bliss, 
And the sweetness, of His mother, when her kiss 
Thrilled like wine, and the story softly told 
In a life did then unfold. It was mine ! 

"Yet sunlight 'neath the cypress weds the dark; 
For the loved, the lost, the longing, sings the lark. 
My son had heard the bittern's tragic cry; 
For Egypt did he live, for Egypt did he die. 

"Sweet Paradise! 

It hangs unconscious over hell 

Like floating garden, reckless, green 

Above the Stygian wave. 

"Sad Paradise! 

The poet's eyelids gravely droop, 

To veil from glamour of the stars, 

While music, sad with melody, weeps on. 

"Where art thou, Rapture? 

Eyes, thine own, I see above the precipice 

When danger hovers near, 

A whirr of wings, a rainbow gleam, 

And thou hast vanished like a dream, 

Sweet Paradise! 



180 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"A teacher, he forgot to teach; 
A lover, he forgot to love; 
Inconstant is mankind, and why? 
Defame the temple, and the dove will fly. 

"Behold my Son, a white-limbed slave 
Who fights for liberty ! 
The arena stretches toward a distant sky, 
The gleaming stars look on, 
Himself his enemy, 

Yet one by one his chains he wrenches off; 
Then glows the moon with fire, 
Earth trembles, 
Constellations flash, 
'Tis victory. 

"And didst thou ask me how he died? 
It was alone as falls the stag, 
Bewildered, staring with large eyes at man, 
As poets die who sing their songs too soon. 
My son! My son!" 

Then turned the ghost of Khem 
Unto the site of Memphis solemnly: 
"Thou mausoleum of the dead, Earth's center, Mem- 
phis ! 
With thy huge stones, great Cairo sports; 
Is this stupendous wreck 
But sign of Egypt's fall? 
Or dost thou dream, O man 
Who wanders melancholy midst these graves, 



EGYPT 181 

That all these buried treasures 

Point to Egypt's prime? 

Priest of Amakis, knowest thou this pile is young 

When measured by the flight of years 

Above the ruins of the past? — 

That Kephren is a puny child 

Of a once splendid art 

That flourished in an age 

When thou didst sleep? 

Seest thou these pyramids, 

Cemented stone to stone with blood? 

Ah, Egypt had grown hoary in her crimes 

When these her monster monuments were reared ! 

"Though man hath found the Nile's mysterious 

source, 
Doth he yet know the spring 
Whence gushed Egyptian life, 
That long forgotten spring 
Concealed beneath the debris of the past? 
Dig up the sands of Africa. 
Bring scholars from afar 
By science labeled, 
Conjure ghosts of Thebes, 
And call the gods, aye God, 
To point thee whence great Egypt sprang ! 
Peer down the centuries, 
And as thou gazest hear the voice 
That comes from far 
Where lips alive still speak! 
Awaking to the moon, 



182 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

The lotus trembling sighs, 

A nation buds to bloom, 

And blooming dies; 

Yet from its grave behold a phantom rise 

That chants in echoes still." 

I lifted up mine eyes, 

Which, as the Ancient spake, I reverently 

had closed, 
And scanning Libyan vastness at a glance, 
I found myself alone — 
Beside the Pyramid. 



CIRCE— MYSTERY 

IN THREE PARTS 

THE SEA 

THE DESERT 

THE MOUNTAIN 

To Alma 



CIRCLE — MY APOLOGY 



I am well aware that the world's conception of Circe 
is quite unlike my own; nevertheless, basing on the 
myth, I have conceived of a far different motif as the 
initiative of her acts from that ascribed to her by the 
general public. 

Though a goddess in a sense, she roams over earth in 
the form of woman and is found here and there under a 
guise entirely her own and never to be mistaken for that 
of the majority of mothers, sweethearts, sisters and 
wives that go to make up a part of the human race. 
Her unique, subtle, almost unbearable charm is caused 
by the fire celestial, rather than earthly flame. She 
turns men into swine by her dangerous fascination, 
which in her own soul is simply ideal aspiration. She 
is seeking "the lost" — her other self — and in the search 
is often misled by the light of men's eyes, imagining 
each lover the divine affinity that constantly eludes her. 
The Ulysses of her soul, whom she would carry with 
her to the high place of her dreams, not having sailed 
to her across seas through storm and danger, she waits 
and watches, irresponsible for the utter temptation which 
her alluring attitude presents, unconscious of the beasts 

185 



186 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

she has made of men, till the bitter truth bursts upon 
her. 

In ideal, intense being, the paradox is inevitable, 
and Circe by her celestial fervor presents to the eyes 
of animal man the effect of a siren. She becomes a 
veritable Scylla to wreck and degrade him. Her far- 
glancing eyes, straining over seas for the sight of the 
dim sail of Ulysses, are misconstrued into those of a 
courtesan. 

Such is the Circe of my dream. 



CIRCE 

Words ! Words ! Words ! 
Come like the rush of the birds, 
Come and express the passion, the stress 
Of my heart! 

Cease to conceal, but clearly reveal 
The subtle ideal, the perilous real, 
Like fireflies thrilling in flight, 
Unalarmed at the clutch of the night! 

Words ! Words ! Words ! 
Spiders that yearn as they spin, 
That catch and entangle and win 
The singer, the listener, the song! 
Muse of my soul, I crave in thy name 
The language of danger and flame ! 



187 



PART I 



THE SEA— ACTION 

Perchance upon our senses steal 

The plaint and shudder of the world, 

A fugue in tremolo. We feel 

Its vast crescendos onward whirled 

To faint at last in vaulted air, 

Enshrouded, shriven by despair, 

Where echoes, humming, dream and play 

Mid flame and cloud of dying day. 

Waves of quivering ether, space unending, 
Skies above the haze of skies extending, 
Oceans into dimmer oceans blending, 
Waste of air and water, seeming two, 
But wed by distance, blue on blue, 
Upheaving monsters of the unsolved deep, 
That lap with foamy tongues the curving shore, 
Green dragons flashing as you coil and leap, 
To dive again with sullen hiss and roar, 
With you, O Sea, we mount to rhythm's flow, 
Ere down into the ebb of life we go! 



188 



CIRCE 189 



CIRCE AND ACTION 

At Circe's feet sat Actaeon, 

And gazed bewildered in her magic eyes 

Along the mazy labyrinth 

That led unto the trysting place of love. 

Ah, Circe's glance ! 

And when she smiled — 

When Circe smiled — 

Alas, when Circe smiled ! 

No gross desire had surged as yet 

Like ruddy wine through Actaeon's blood, 

He asked no other bliss than this, 

To touch the hem of Circe's robe. 

"Loved Siren, whence your charm?" he plead, 

"I fain from you would fly, yet here am I." 

She glanced afar, through balmy space afar, 
And gazing smiled, and smiling softly sighed. 

Behind a cloud there sailed a fading star, 
A Zephyr drooped its wings and died. 

"Brave Actaeon, leave me ere it be too late. 
Go forth and dare the shafts of fate !" 

"Alas, and still I stay! 

Enough for me to breathe this tropic air, 
To watch the fires resplendent in your eyes, 

To revel in the tangle of your hair. 
Alas, and still I stay !" 



190 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Lo, women like rich mushrooms spring/' she said, 
"From earth, clean, luscious and to spare; 

Why worship me with mingled bliss and dread? 
The world's alive with women everywhere." 

"You snare me with your tawny braids 

Till willing prey am I; 
A chain about me you have wound, 

As strong as destiny. 
By jewel glances of your eyes 

Transfixed am I with ecstasy. 
Dear love, mysterious love!" 

"Am /, O Actaeon, Fate disguised?" 

"You seem forever young; 
Your speech means centuries. 
Your face in years a score; 
A Phoenix, Circe, do you rise 
From glowing ash that never dies, 
A mystic wonder and surprise !" 

"My father is the burning Sun," she said, 

"Speak not of age to me; 
Immortals live;, the old are dead, 

And youth alone is free." 

"Your smile of mystery — 
Fair Circe, history 
Is writ upon your face, 
A legend for its theme, 



CIRCE 191 

The lore of some great race 
Its paradox, its dream. 
You conjure melody from far; 
I hear the plaint of Zephyr — then 
The singing of a love-mad star — 
Sweet Circe, smile again !" 

"Unreasoning Actaeon, 
Tell your chief desire ! 
What fans your smouldering flames to fire?" 

"O Circe! You!" 

"Apart from me, what love you best?" 

"My native land." 

"Has it a soul? 

Do you revere its peaks and vales, 

Its orchards and its streams?" 

"Lay bare the heart of pain, 
The spirit of the law; 
And I will tell you then, 
What love of country means." 

"Impassioned fool, you have a foe ! 

Go challenge him ! O go, O go ! 

'Tis ecstasy, 'tis bliss to die! 

Ye gods above, if only I 

Were mortal too !" she sighed. 

"Your land is but yourself grown great. 

Within you are its streams and vales, 



192 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Its trees and mountain crest, 

Its rulers and its laws of state, 

Its North, its South, its East and West. 

Within you are its calm and gales ; 

In you its peoples' heart and dreams; 

In you its stars and soft moonbeams; 

In you its joy, in you its woe, 

Go serve yourself, and kill your foe!" 

"But Circe! " 



"What deadly charm have I 

That you should hold my sight 

More dear than honor's crown? 

Could I behold you in your might 

But strike your victim down, 

Or could I see you cold and prone 

Where vultures wheel and dive, 

Your dead face stern and fixed and lone, 

Though I were yet alive; 

Or would you now but say Adieu; 

Then should I love, and love but you!" 

"O, Circe, have you loved?" 

"Loved! Actseon, — loved! 

A fair enchantress I, so prates the world, 

By all mankind condemned. 

A harlot clad in red! 

A sorceress, a wily snake 

Entwining the limp limbs of men 

And kissing their warm mouths 



CIRCE 193 

With poisoned lips. 
Loved ! Actaeon, — loved ! 
Could Circe love? 
Immortal, I the mortal seek, 
My other half, the fallen man. 
What value has eternity 
Without its erring mate in time? 
What reason for infinity 
If finite failure is not there? 
What charm has immortality 
Unless it knows despair?" 

She raised a sea-shell from the waves 

And listened to its haunting strain. 

"O hark! It sings of mystery — again and yet 

again — 
Circe misunderstood; 
Of vestal purity, the good, 
Of beauty fleeing from desire. 
No tender wind-swept lyre 
Is keyed to such high destiny. 
Ah, Music of Eternity! 
The deep-sea heart within this shell 
Is sighing for the loved-lost wonder 
That descending into hell 
Then soared aloft to voice of thunder, 
As virgin moons majestic rise 
Aloof and regal to the skies. 

"O sad, sad heart in this pink shell ! 
Tried heart of all the tragic seas ! 



194 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Like rne you seek the Lost. Tis well! 
Among these mortals, on his knees, 
Perchance my other self I'll find, 
My other self — for Love is kind. 
Can it be true that vestal glow 
Is flame too bright for profane eyes ? 
And is it right of gods alone 
To watch the fires of Paradise? 

"I, Circe, stranded here 

Like this sad-singing shell, 

And harking to the gods with fear, 

And gazing far from heaven to hell 

Have stumbled on a man, and see 

Perchance a beast — perchance divinity. 

"Like all immortals humanized 

I'm innocent, unwise, disguised 

And lost in woe and ecstasy. 

I pray to heaven; in cold disdain 

It flashes fire upon my pain. 

I hug the earth and kiss the sod 

And plead with Nature for its God, 

But only weeds spring up and grow 

To wrap me in a shroud of woe. 

O ask me not if / have loved!" 

Paler than lilies 
Grew young Actaeon's face. 
"Perchance in me you'll find," he said, 
"The mortal self you love and dread." 



CIRCE 195 

"In you? Give me a sign!" 

"A sign ! Love's sign is passion, 

His colors white and red, 

His gems, blood-rubies pilfered from the dead, 

His pass-word is 'Surrender.' 

Again, again, again 

The flag of truce he scorns, nor waits, 

But fiercely holds and subjugates. 

A glutton tasting, he devours 

And plucks the bud before it flowers. 

Love loves himself, through all Love's hours !" 

"Ye gods !" she wrung her hands and cried, 

"If, Actaeon, you have told the truth, 

Love is a brute, undeified, 

And Cupid but a fabled youth. 

Ha, Ha ! And I have thought of love 

As heaven-aspiring like the dove. 

Is earth on high, the sky below? 

Can rivers to their sources flow? 

Do human beings walk on air 

And stalk their victims everywhere? 

Are birds struck dumb that long to sing? 

Does beast four-footed sprout a wing? 

Of mortal and Immortal wed, 

Which is the living, which the dead? 

Your ship's a stranded wreck," she sighed, 

"Your trireme bruised and danger tried, 

Yourself sea-battered seeking wine 

That burns your lips, alas ! and mine, 



196 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Your passion quenches that soft fire 
That flashed in many-hued desire 
When once you proudly onward bore 
From mountain pass to ocean shore 
The flag, the sword, the shield — Ah me ! 
Can you not see that banner yet 
Afloat from yonder parapet? 
Can you not see? Can you not see 
The flames of burnished copper there, 
The metaled sun, sunk in despair, 
The splendor of that fine-tipped spear, 
Translucent as a lake and clear, 
The edge, the keenness, gleam and glare 
Of that unbuckled sword, the flare 
Of knife and cutlass? Can you hear 
The solemn beat of drums, the sheer, 
The sharp shrill shrieks, the awful groans 
Of human throats, the sobs, the moans ? 
O can you hear and can you see 
Your life, your fate, yet think of me?" 

He looked upon her rapt and dazed; 
Deep in her stormy eyes he gazed; 
Then far in fancy's distant seas 
Beheld again upon the breeze 
The signal of himself a part, 
The unfurled ensign of his heart. 
But back he flew; his hope was dead; 
For lo, his vestal love had fled. 
"Circe! Circe! Where art thou?" 
The sullen waves moaned on the shore, 



CIRCE 1£V7 

Sepulchral thunder, nothing more. 
"Circe! Circe! Where art thou?" 
He strove to rend the mist in twain 
In frenzy calling, yet in vain, 
"Circe! Circe! Where art thou?" 

* * * 

Hid by the arras of the haze 
She lay upon a jagged stone, 
And iNature in her tender ways 
Brought comfort to herself alone. 
With love she clung to Circe there, 
With soothing fingers combed her hair, 
And on her lips she pressed the kiss 
Of mingled misery and bliss. 

O Circean sea ! Sea of intensity ! 
Deep with the depths of drear immensity! 
Deep to the realms of dumbness and desire 
Where sound is not and Siren's shell and lyre 

Are deadly mute! 
Sea of unfathomed mystery, 
Attuned to poignant thrills of pain, 
Potential with primeval ecstasy, 
Sea of the Circean heart! Again 
Your surging billows storm and rise 
To greet the stars, the moon, the skies; 
And on voluptuous summer days, 
Empyrean blest your gems ablaze, 
You call and call Urania's dove, 
In far mid-air awaiting love. 



PART II 



THE DESERT— NANA 

Far gleaming, farther, farther on 

The desert stretches. 
Upon its bosom here and there 

An emerald flashes, 
And where it steals into the blue 

The topaz pierces through. 

How it glitters, glitters, glitters ! 

Scintillating rays 
That dazzle human eyes. 
How it scatters fire that reaches 

Even up to amorous skies ! 

Thou scorner of all life 
Save what is bred by thee, 

Immensity of rank desire 
That boldly dares to be, 
Gigantic Sphinx ! 

That filches jewels from the sun, 
And steals the white milk of the moon, 
What kisses thou dost give ! 

198 



CIRCE 199 



And what fierce joy of heat and space 
Is granted him who gazes on thy face. 



Fair Circe singing 

Sat beneath the boughs of brooding trees 
Near to the desert's trysting place, 
With verdant soil. The perfumed breeze 
With wings aquiver cooled and fanned 
The grasses of this tropic land. 

"O longing soul, grieve thou no more ! 

Life surges to the flow, 

The tide is high, 

Hope will not go. 
O longing soul, grieve thou no more ! 
Forget thy tragedies and fears, 
Thy weary waiting and thy tears; 
Forget thine agony of years, 

Grieve thou no more I" 

And as she sang 
The boughs were softly parted 
As if by muses tender-hearted, 
And in his priestly robe and youth 
Stood Nana, harbinger of truth. 

"Why wait I wistfully," she said, 
"Beneath this sheltering tree? 
'Twere far more seemly had you watched, 
And sighing, longed for me. 



200 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Behold the moon ! 

A dead globe desert-born, 

Soft glare of borrowed fire, 

The progeny this waste brings forth 

Is free from all desire." 

Said he regretfully, 

"I would that I some progeny might bear 

Full worthy of my vows; 

This arid desert fills my heart with shame 

That I, forbidden, give the world 

Naught save an honored name." 

"Most surely from the East are you," 

Sighed Circe tenderly, 
"And Orient-born are passion-true. 
Pray tell me, for I deem you wise, 
Why all your vows you sacrifice?" 

"What fatal glamour 

Has this waste," he said; 

"This Sphinx with heart of fire, 

This heat conceived in ice, 

This frenzy's calm, 

This love's disdain, 

This sorrow's ecstasy? 

If you were not a sorceress, 

A riddle which yourself must solve, 

Then would I wander in the temple aisle 

And in a scroll of vellum lose your smile. 

Forgetting all save sanctity and lore 

I'd dream and dream of you no more." 



CIRCE 201 

Then Circe's eyes filled full with tears, 
Her dark, unfathomed, haunting eyes ! 
She gazed through sorrow's mist of years 
Far out upon the glittering seas 
Of desert's sand. 

"O golden Orient! 

Fair country of my dreams 

Where sound and color blend, 

A rhapsody of incense-breathing form, 

A paradise of tombs, 

golden Orient! 

1 long to blend with thee 
And scale thy soaring hills 

Or bask beneath thy flaming sun. 

"To-night the moon full-orbed and bright 

Is shining in this a^of blue, 

And turns to pha* 1 ' thy temples and thy mosques, 

While snow-white palaces sail vaguely on the clouds 

Or sink to sombre depths of mystery. 

Fair land, whose perfume-laden air 

Intoxicates my raptured sense, 

I love thee with a passion bred of grief, 

In dimness floating to the music of the tides 

Thou earnest on my soul a dream of ecstasy. 

O golden Orient! 

My heart is sick for thee. 

Must I a stranger roam again 

And view thy mountain peaks from far 

In sorrow's realm of memory?" 



202 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

She bowed her head upon her knees 
And sat in silence, while the breeze 
Sang hymns of woe amid the trees. 

"Sweet Circe, sigh no more," 

Plead Nana tenderly; 

"My country is your home, 

My heart your resting place. 

What claims have I to priestly vows? 

Have you not splendor in your eyes? 

"I thought this day that I mayhap 

Could tear myself away 

And fold about me once again 

The robes of sanctity; 

But now, divinity begone ! 

This gem of mine, honor, 

Toss I in your lap. 

A jewel dearer than my very eye, 

It sparkles like Orion in the blue; 

I scorn it now for you. 

"This power of intellect 

With which I conquer mystery, 

Explain the unexplained 

And shatter trembling creeds, 

Or grapple with the riddles of the East, 

This proud ambition which can rise 

Above cold reason's peak 

To that volcanic crest of fire, 

The soul's white heat, 

All, all to you I give. 



CIRCE 208 

"I spurn my vows, my creed, my fame. 

Compared with you 

I hold them worthless as the muddy pool 

To one who longs for wine. 

Fair Circe, set the seal 

Of your red lips on mine, 

And all my heart is ever thine !" 

"And after that?" she said. 

"If you could give me more, 

Together we would steal 

Far from this desert sea and verdant shore 

Into some mountain fastness near the sky 

Where spring the limpid drops 

Which gather in their flow 

The very dregs of India's woe. 

Alone in that celestial air 

Our lives would purer grow 

In temples of resisting ice 

Entombed in virgin snow. 

And O, to rest upon your beating heart, 

Absorb the mystery of your eyes, 

And taste the nectar of your lips — 

'Twere very bliss of woe!" 

He towered above the sheen of desert sands 

In rapture's majesty, 
In mad abandon of desire. 
That he might taste of mortal ecstasy, 
His pearl of immortality he threw 

At Circe's feet. 



204 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

His classic face with roses all aglow 
That sprung from his voluptuous blood, 
His eyes ablaze with passion's flame 
Appalled and captured Circe's heart 
And drew her to his side 
As earth's most central fire 
Draws all its life down to itself. 

She listens — then admires, adores, 

Alas ! she fain would yield, 

When like the water to the flame 

A chill of cold suspicion steals 

Across her burning soul. 

Recoiling as one stung by asp 

Beneath the velvet leaves 

Of some voluptuous plant, 

She draws her trailing robe 

About her limbs 

And folds her arms across her breast; 

Then lifting high her head, 

Speaks words that cut like gleaming knives 

Clean through his panoply of sense 

Straight to his naked soul! 

"Your honor, fame and intellect 

Have you renounced? 

Pray would you die upon my breast 

While drinking carnal poison from my lips ? 

A God are you among mankind, 

A Master heaven-sent, 

Ordajned to re-create the world 



CIRCE 205 

And leave within the archives of the years 

The essence of your thought; 

But like a swine you are, 

And I, alas ! have been the cause. 

Ah, I had longed to come to you 

As steals a zephyr to a burning brow! 

To you would I have been the moon 

That guides the traveller on his way, 

The star, the very sun! 

To you would I have been the voice 

Heard through the din of sound 

Like haunting bells that ring afar, 

To you the dream of dreams, 

But if myself I sully for your sake 

My love will perish in your mad embrace 

As in a hot simoon the wanderer dies." 

She paused; 

A prayer was on her lips, 

A supplication in her eyes; 

But he, as if some living thing 

Had turned at once to stone 

Or molten mass to ice, 

Stood rigid, deaf, a fiend! 

Then suddenly in imprecation spoke, 

His voice an echo from some nether world, 

So far away it seemed. 

"I kneel to you no more! 

A freezing liquid courses through my veins; 

My nerves are silver cords, 



206 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

My muscles tempered steel. 

I loved you, aye, and hated too, 

But heaven and hell are blotted out. 

smile, and smile again ! 

Beam over me with lustrous eyes ! 

Caress me with your finger tips, 

Or clasp me in your pliant arms ! 

Sing in my ears — Sing, sing 

Unto my very soul ! But what care I ? 

Forever are you cursed ! 

Doomed to virginity, of love you make a lie ! 

Stripped of my majesty, 

With beasts I'll herd — 

With beasts I'll die!" 

An instant with her eyes on his, 

Defiant Circe stood, 

Enfolded in white light 

Then spoke in voice as vibrant 

As a wind-swept harp 

Struck by harsh fingers in the gloom: 

"Circe am I, who changes men to swine ! 

Great God above, can I transform 

A thing divine? 

What slimy trail is that 

Which creeps from you away 

And vanishes in mist? 

1 thought that I had found a god, 

When from your eyes there peered the beast. 
Go — go! I make no self-defense, 



CIRCE 207 



And pitiless, no pity ask. 
Go! Suffer what I too shall bear! 
Get down to earth and kiss the clod, 
You, whom I thought a man — a god! 

"White peaks of Himala, farewell! 

And thou, blue dome, 

Where all thy fires are suns 

And all thy suns transcendent stars! 

Farewell ye streams of India! 

And Cashmere's verdant vale, 

And thou, great desert, 

With thy jewelled breast, 

Thy million diamonds 

Scintillating flame, 

To thee I bid adieu! 

Ye gods that comfort hearts of men, 

What consolation bring you now? 

I call upon you! Come, 

And on my longing lips one drop 

Of your narcotic pour, 

Or plunge me deep beneath the waves 

Of Lethe's sluggish stream, 

And to my tortured soul 

Send you the balm of sleep once more !" 



She waited while her upraised glance 

Searched longingly the vast expanse, 

Then turning to the earth below 

She cursed her body that had bred such woe: 



208 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"On these bright eyes of mine 

May blindness steals 

And may the bane of deafness 

Strike mine ears, 

And these enticing braids 

Be blasted as with touch of years ! 

Nor would I smile 

Nor walk erect, 

But bent and crippled be 

Till God shall end this misery !" 



PART III 



THE MOUNTAIN— LEON 

Ascending, rugged, scarped in limpid air, 

Like Ida, this hoar summit seeks the light, 

And flings to man a challenge here and there 

To dare its awful height; 

Like Ida, bearing Zeus upon its breast, 

Who brooding groans in thunder 

Till the mountain's crest 

Has shocked grim earth to wonder 

At flash of deadly eyes 

That glance o'er Thessaly and rise 

To scorn the stars; like Ida here 

This god-like peak, intrepid, sheer, 

Has thrust itself aloft, sublime and drear. 

A comrade of the Moon art thou, 
Wedded to lunar charm ! 
The bans are published, and the vow, 
She nestles in thine arm, 
Caressing thy large virile head, 
While on thy breast her prayer is said. 
One other! This Moon-soul of thine 
Has bred a singer, young, divine, 

209 



210 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Who like Minerva climbs thy sides 
And with thy love and thee abides. 
He bathes himself in lunar light 
As on thy crest he rests at night, 
And paints his words on fragrant air 
With color's magic everywhere. 
An Eden midst the crags he sees, 
A temple 'mong the storm-tossed trees. 
Within his tender, fleeing notes 
A soul, complaining, strives to break 
The spell of music as it floats 
Adrift with griefs which softly make 
Harmonics, like the plaintive lute 
That wailing tenderly stops mute 
And waits the echo of its strain 
In dread that it may sigh again. 

Immortal are the gods and great; 
But he whose tones are big with fate 
The knees of Zeus one time embraced 
And stroked his chin, then boldly faced 
His scowling eyes and sang his song 
That deathless through the space along 
Hums on mid azures of the sky, 
Hums on and on, and does not die, 
While birds, enravished, beat their wings 
In harmony with that which sings, 
And Zeus, entranced, is listening yet 
To music he would fain forget. 

Barbaric ! Aye, barbaric, rare 
These mystic tones of lucid air, 



CIRCE 211 

Initial in their greed of sound, 
Like Nature in the matrix found, 
A wild tattoo of drums that thrill 
The dancing goblins of the hill, 
Clear trumpet throats upon the height 
That lure and charm the soul of night. 
A soft, wind-fingered phantom lyre 
Sings to the mountain's heart of fire. 
Sweet viols and thin reeds love-lorn 
Cry out for life and light and dawn, 
Faint echoes, like a tale half told, 
A child's far whimper in the cold, 
The call of ghosts and ghouls, the drear 
Dank voice of wind and rain and fear. 
Barbaric ! Aye, and fierce and clear 
Intrinsic Nature lives again 
In these high tones of limpid air, 
The poet's rapture and despair. 

'Twas dawn. 

A wild bird scattered pearls of foam 
As forth he flew the waste to roam, 
Till wed to clouds as white as he, 
He saw no more the surging sea. 

O Morning! 

Crowned with gems of pink and dusk, 
Beholding earth with blue-black sinless eyes, 
O Morning! redolent with rose and musk, 
Bewitched with youth that never dies ! 
Bridesmaid of Night and Day that marry where 
The Sun has kissed the Dark's long hair, 



212 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Departing with the dallying star, 

O Dawn! thou still art not so far 

But that to-morrow thou wilt come once more 

To ravish hill and vale and shore! 



From dawn till in the zenith shone the sun 
Young Leon searched for his loved Muse, the one 
Fair ideal of his hope,, the fire 
Of his impassioned strong desire, 
And wandering sang: 

"O Muse, show me thy face! 
To gaze but once into thine eyes 
Were essence of a burning bliss. 
I ask no greater joy than this, 
To gaze but once into thine eyes!" 

"And O, to hear but once thy voice ! 
The music it reveals in dreams, 
Where myriad-tinted beauty gleams, 
To hear but once thy voice!" 

"And O, to touch but once thy lips ! 
The perfect flower one instant mine, 
Eternal life were then divine — 
To touch but once thy lips !" 



" 'Twas only yesterday," young Leon said, 
"And when the sun was mounting high 
I met a priestess as she wandered by ; 



CIRCE 213 

And she was veiled. I've never seen before 
A garb so strange as that she wore." 

When in their witches' webs the spiders swarm, 
When lizards seek the sheltering rocks at noon, 
When plants droop lazily and hum and sigh, 
And Earth in stupor seems about to die, 
He sought her lonely home and found her there, 
Fearless of light and sun in open air. 

"Why have you come?" she asked, "I dwell apart, 
Communing with my own sad heart. 
For me, alas ! mankind is not, 
By all the world am I forgot." 

"Are you an oracle?" he plead, — "a seer? 

And can you riddles read and mysteries clear? 

You veil your features, which I cannot see, 

I pray you, flash their light on me! 

A dreamer am I of true dreams and deep, 

A goddess comes to me in sleep. 

When I awake she steals away. 

If I might view her by the light of day, 

Like incense would my songs arise 

From magic memory of her eyes." 

"Is there no means by which to tell 
Who she may be that weaves this spell ?" 

"At night," he answered, "when my soul is free, 
At night she smiles and broods o'er me. 



214 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

I know her longing and despair. 
Her reason, rapture — shall I dare 
My burning heart lay bare to you 
And beg this boon, herself to view?" 
"Speak on !" she sighed. 

"By that strange gift akin to instinct of the birds, 

The weal it is of singers, without words 

To feel, to see, to hear through naked soul; 

Upon creation's verge my love would find its goal! 

Since first I saw the stars above 

And greeted the forsaken moon, 

From far-off altitudes unknown 

Have floated magic notes of love, 

And vital pictures, color-burned, 

I've caught and held, like doves returned. 

The ravishment of amorous flowers, 

The droon and hum of busy bees, 

The chant of pines hard-beat with showers, 

The moans and groans of straining seas, 

The stress of pinioned winds and gales, 

The on-rush, the despair, the wails 

Of tempests that a truce refuse — 

All these, incarnate, are my Muse, 

Who, seeing, I have yet not seen, 

And hearing, I have yet not heard. 

O tell me, woman, priestess, queen, 

If from her lips one kiss, one word 

May fall on me. Speak! Where, O where, 

Is she, the answer to my prayer?" 



CIRCE 215 

"What if a curse is on her life/' she said, 

"Her beauty withered by the touch of Pan, 

Her fatal charm extinguished, dead, 

The fire blown out by breath of man ! 

Love cruel may have pierced her heart, 

Rejected, wrecked her throbbing brain. 

The charms of woman soon depart; 

Why think you that from grief and strain 

Forth she shall come, unspoiled again? 

Still dazzling with Uranian fire, 

Time mocking and all vain desire, 

Her smiles alive, despising age, 

Head held erect, with eyes of rage, 

Or joy, outlooking space, 

The stellar flames, defying race, 

A soul alive with storm and bliss — 

O tell me, friend, how know you this?" 

"A soldier once and now deplored 
Her garments' very hem adored; 
Perchance she wrapped his body round 
And passion's subtle witchery found. 
A priest debased his ardent soul 
And drank the lees of dark despair, 
With her in hell he sought his goal — 
How know you but she's with him there? 

"By dower of her humanity 

She should be old and worn and bent, 

Her strength, her vanity 

By savage time entirely spent, 



216 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

Her voice the rough, virago breeze 
Which croaks and mumbles mid the trees, 
Her eyes alone betraying fire 
That tells the tale of her desire. 

"O bard divine, may she refuse! 
Ask not, ask not, to view your Muse, 
Lest in the vision music fly 
And all the charm of genius die !" 

"Then grief be mine," he said, 
"Loved beauty dumb and music dead! 
Then perish all the gods above 
If from me flies my Muse, my Love ! 
If her mysterious charm is o'er 
And glamour veils the world no more, 
Then while I drag my years along 
I'll curse the singer and the song." 

"But man blasts beauty," she replied, 

"The Muse within his arms has died. 

As if the holy were a clod, 

He blames divinity, or God. 

The Bard is man with face reversed, 

He upward looks, not down !" 

Upon young Leon's brow there stole 

The shadow of a frown. 

"Would you behold your loved Muse now?" she sighs, 
And seeks the soul within his eyes. 



CIRCE 217 

"Aye, now!" 

"In body, face to face?" 
"Aye, face to face!" 

"0 think! your joy may turn to pain, 

Your love to hate; 
Refrain! I beg of you, refrain! 

Nor challenge Fate." 

"No fear have I !" 

"If she find favor in your eyes, 

O can you, can you break the spell 

And in the fog of grief and sighs 

Bid her a long farewell? 

In realization let her go, 

In memory live the joy, the woe?" 

"Aye! all the future shall be this 
One hour of rapt and perfect bliss, 
One climax shall suffice for me 
Through days and years — Eternity!" 

'Twas strange, but she, the oracle, the seer, 
Was trembling as do poplar leaves, that sheer 
With beauty turn their sheen unto the light; 
And then she rose to her full, splendid height, 
And spake in voice that seemed to moan, 
So low and tender was its tone. 



218 DREAMS OF HELLAS 

"Your Muse, O Bard of mountain crest and sky, 
Your Muse, O Leon of the Wilds, am I ; 
Ah, rapture, color, paradise and song! 
One kiss ere from your clinging arms I fly — 
Love, Love, my Love! I've waited long." 

She stepped into the day's clear glow, 
And with a trembling hand and slow 
The veil uplifted that concealed her face, 
And then in all the splendor and the grace 
Of noon that quivers ere it turns and flies, 
She flashed the fire of her mysterious eyes 
Full into his, while to her longing breast 
She lured him, tenderly, as she caressed 
His cheeks, his hair, nor smiling ceased 
Till on his ardent lips were pressed 
The fiery kisses of the East; 

Then drew herself far back, away, 
As goes the spirit of the day, 
Till vanished save a rose-red gleam 
That haunts forever like a dream, 
His Circe that his lips had known, 
His Muse of Melody had flown 
Amid the foliage of the trees 
Whose branches like tumultous seas 
Called "Victory !" to the Bard alone. 



CIRCE 219 



Vague time may pass, the day, the night, 
And stars spin onward in their flight, 
The hours skim by like butterflies 
Aflame with joy that seldom dies; 
Yet here on Hellas' wooded hill, 
Where Pindus sheer, aspiring, true, 
Is looming in a waste of blue, 
A singer sang and singeth still. 



